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Group Fights Politicizing Science and Engineering
smooth wombat writes, "Several prominent scientists said yesterday that they had formed an organization dedicated to electing politicians 'who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.' The group will be a 527 organization and will focus its efforts on races in which science plays a part." From the article: "In what it described as a Bill of Rights for scientists and engineers, the group said that researchers who receive federal funds should be free to discuss their work publicly, and that appointments to federal scientific advisory committees should be based on scientific qualifications, not political beliefs. It said the government should not support science education programs that 'include concepts that are derived from ideology,' an apparent reference to creationism and its ideological cousin, intelligent design."
This group is asking politicians to make decisions based on logic and scientific evidence when the voters aren't even using these processes. I remember the 2004 election and I remember plotzing when I heard someone was voting for Bush. Often times, I got a canned response of something crazy like, "John Kerry is for abortion. Bush is against it. If my mother had had me aborted, I wouldn't be here and that's why I'm voting for Bush." Now, whether any of that is true or not can be debated forever, that's not the point of this post. The point is that someone or something had gotten to them the message that if Kerry was president, all fetuses would be aborted. They didn't pay attention to any other issues except that one and they made a very emotional decision based on it.
What's even more exasperating about this situation is that Kerry wouldn't have had the power to change the abortion laws and Bush hasn't done a damn thing about them either. This makes the "my body my right" crowd just as idiotic. Abortion is always a steaming political debate right around an election and then subsides to nothing during the term because the trimester laws aren't budging.
The logical step is to not even base your vote on the abortion stance. Of course, none of the voters are logical.
What's the first aim of SEFORA? To push one candidate based on a single issue -- stem cells.
Just admit it, Democrats are less founded in conservative Christian belief and therefore are more prone to rely on science for decisions/explanations. This 527 will most likely end up supporting the Democratic candidate 9 times out of 10 simply because of the "party stances" the Republican will most certainly take. The million dollar question is, "Would they support a third party candidate running on the Science platform before the bi-partisan idiots?" And the answer is 'probably not.' Which is really too bad because sometimes the third party candidate has good ideas and stances -- just lacks major funds to get the word out.
I see this group as doing an overall good thing but I'm not a big fan of their methods. What ever happened to just trying to educate the voters? At the end of the day, the people voting are not scientifically founded. If they were, I wouldn't have to put up with commercials for The War at Home on TV. The politicians are supposed to represent the people and, since most people aren't experts using science and engineering, they shouldn't make decisions based on this.
My work here is dung.
In this day and age, if I'm running for office, which am I going to do:
- Say and Do the right things for the integrity of office and country?
ORI think it's fair to say, we can see how we got where we are. Fixing it by electing good, intelligent and wise candidates means finding them and grooming them so the voter, who cares more about Paris Hilton getting a DUI, keeping gays from marrying, teaching Creationism/Intelligent Design vs. Evolution than whether there's about to be a rise in sea levels, mass extinction and famine is a truly gargantuan undertaking. First they have to get the average clod on the street to understand how clean science will impact their lives. Considering the head start stupidity has and the powerful allies of ignorance, it's daunting.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The facts have a well known liberal bias. We can't have bias in science, therefore we should ignore the facts (and also disregard reality, since we know reality to have a liberal bias as well)
Reality has a liberal bias
You got religious freaks on the right and you got frothy eggheads on the left. Blend the two together in a classroom and you got a civil war going on. Makes it hard to be a moderate who believes in both God and science.
So, I didn't bother reading the NYTimes article (too lazy atm for Bugmenot, I'll get to it later), but a quick googling showed that the contact for Scientists and Engineers for America is Michael Brown of Alexandira, VA. No contact info was given on the three sites I saw the information.
All I have to say is: Brownie, I hope this time you do a heckuva job.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
We already have an entirely non-partisan and truthful 527 organization. Ever hear of moveon.org?
Where were you when the voynix came?
I'll volunteer to head the Kansas chapter. Just provide me with body armor, 24-7 security and an anonymous remailer.
The sad fact of the current political state of the United States is simply that politicians are relying on voters to vote based on emotion, not logic.
Which, when you think about it, is a brilliant way to manipulate people into getting them to vote against their own best interests. Rove understood this and whatever you say about the man, if he fools you once and fools you twice and keeps on fooling you, it's not his fault. I refer to some of those issues as Sucker Bait and you can certainly see how quickly people polarize on them. The trick is figuring which issues are going to get you the numbers you need and then you can go and do whatever you want. Which they have. Perhaps it will be a good thing when low-lying parts of the US capitol are among the first to flood if sea levels do rise 40 or more feet.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I think proportional voting systems would do a lot to help this. For awhile at least, the two parties will be sending in candidates of the second type you describe. Partisan voters will fall in line, as usual. But almost everyone's *second choice is going to be a person from a minor party, rather than the other major party candidate.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
http://www.sefora.org/pages.php?submitted=1&id=93
What's up with this? Was it run through bablefish?
"... you got frothy eggheads on the left"
A little more nutmeg next time?
Where were you when the voynix came?
If it is so true that this country is so starkly divided between "religious freaks" and "frothy eggheads," then why is that you are a religious person who believes in science, I am a religious person who believes in science, the vast majority of my friends are religious people who believe in science (and even those who aren't religious don't have anything against those who are), and the vast majority of random people I have talked to all around the country are religious people who believe in science? Could it be *GASP* that the vocal minorities of frothy eggheads and religious freaks are actually not at all representative of mainstream Americans? Could media sensationalism (even right here on our beloved
I am tired of this "line in the sand" BS that we all appear to have fallen into. The overwhelming majority of Americans are reasonable people who are nothing like the extremist nutjobs portrayed on TV, and our biggest downfall will be ignoring that fact.
While I agree with the idea of removing politics from scientific research, I feel that ideology is quite necessary. Without some sort of noble goal, what's the point other than pure curiosity? Why research cancer or aids if not to save lives? Is that not ideology?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
While I fully support objectivity and fact based analysis and decision making, I fear I am one of few who would rather make up their own mind than have their opinions handed down to them. Even if this group is somewhat successful in accomplishing their goals, the problem is that mass media (I know the internet has somewhat lessened its grip on american society) still has the ability to put whatever spin it wants when covering respective stories. Please do not try and tell me that anyone here buys into the objectivity of the "No-Spin Zone"! It all comes down to perception being reality. If all of the news channels portrayed this group as foolish/off centered/crazy/etc then without a doubt an overwhelmingly large portion of american citizens would believe that at face value. I agree that the removal of ideology and religion from our political system is important but I think it is much more difficult than some think. But hey - we gotta start somewhere right?!?!
You missed the obvious- the scientific method itself is an ideology, of the skeptical religion of objectivism.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The facts have a well known liberal bias. We can't have bias in science, therefore we should ignore the facts (and also disregard reality, since we know reality to have a liberal bias as well)
When waters rise, lands dry up and people start screaming about who is going to pay for this, the facts, liberal or conservative, will be irrelevant. I do believe the majority of cities (which tend to be more liberal) which are at risk to flooding from rising seas will assert a new reality on Washington DC (what parts of it remain above the Potomac and Atlantic.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is this group going to teach politicians that, unlike the equivalent with the theory of gravity, you can't validate climatological theories by making 1000 copies of the earth, altering emissions for some of them, waiting a thousand years, and then running a regression, and that its certainty is to that extent weaker?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
The best of scientists are not political at all (maybe libertarian).
Pity. Those hairy underarms were hot!
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I like how you said the following
"religious ideology of objectivism."
It made me laugh.
Where do you get that being objective, or wanting people to be objective, is a religious ideology?
All these crazy religious ideologies running around with their preaching of the word "THINK"
And people running around saying "I REFUSE TO THINK and BE OBJECTIVE!"
I just see this kind of funny war between objective thinkers and subjective thinkers. The objective thinkers are measurably winning, but the subjective thinkers THINK they are winning, even though they have no proof.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
May the Maths Be with you!
When American scientists have to form a 527 group just to make sure the public has reasonable access to facts and reports?
We used to be the most technologically advanced country in the world. Now American fundamentalist extremists, enormously well funded fundamentalists, want to keep biology out of the classroom. Oil companies want to supress climate science. And both are the principal campaign financiers of the presidential administration and both houses of congress. And a majority position on the supreme court.
And the powers that be want to frame it as a "you're either with science or with the Lord" kind of insane debate that went out of fashion in the 18th century.
This is the kind of thinking that will relagate us to "has-been" status quicker than you can say "empire where the sun never sets"
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
Elect scientists and engineers! There's a contested race in CA's 11th congressional district where the challenger has a Ph.D. in mathematics and an engineering background in wind turbine technology.
So they are fighting the politicizing of science and engineering by creating a political group? And yes, a 527 is a political organization whether they admit it or not. Oh sweet irony :)
Segfault
You make an interesting point, but which do you prefer - Government using Reason or Government using Religion? A period where Faith overrules Reason is known as a "Dark Age", whereas a time where Reason overrules Faith is known as an "Enlightened Age" or a "Renaissance".
I'll choose SEFORA as friends. I prefer Technocrats over Talibans.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Where do you get that being objective, or wanting people to be objective, is a religious ideology?
It has believers. It has a codeified set of ideological rules. It has stupid traditions that are so accepted that nobody questions them. Looks like a religious ideology to me.
All these crazy religious ideologies running around with their preaching of the word "THINK"
Well, that's what the Pope said recently- and in response the religion of peace killed nuns and rioted. But that's not my point. My point is that an unbiased human being has never existed- call it Seeber's Uncertainty Principle: Any experiment run by human beings will discover a scientific truth compatible with the biases of the human being runing the experiment.
And people running around saying "I REFUSE TO THINK and BE OBJECTIVE!"
Well, it's more along these lines "I refuse to think, and instead I believe in only what I see and not what I don't see". It's a little more complex than that- the traditions of peer review and committees muddle the concept out more to "I believe what is printed in peer reviewed journals without asking who the anonymous peers are", but it works out to the same thing.
I just see this kind of funny war between objective thinkers and subjective thinkers. The objective thinkers are measurably winning, but the subjective thinkers THINK they are winning, even though they have no proof.
Proof is in the eye of the beholder- it is a religious belief that doesn't really exist. Both subjective and objective thinkers are useful, but both are fooling themselves when they claim a lack of bias.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Great idea!
So, what would happen if all the rational people in the US ran for all of the available offices? Given that so many people in the US just vote randomly instead of using relevant information couldn't damn near every incumbent be pushed out in about 10 years?
Independents, heck, they could call it the Independence Party and pool resources but not policy. Anyone running independently could basic support.
Anyone know how many public offices there are in the US? Where's a good place for political data?
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
How far has Slashdot fallen when Slashdot readers fall for anything someone puts in a press realease and refuse to consider any other information or alternate point of view on a subject?
And the powers that be want to frame it as a "you're either with science or with the Lord" kind of insane debate that went out of fashion in the 18th century.
The new version is: "You're with the Lord? We hate you. You are now a second-class citizen."
You might just was well try to hold back a tsunami with a shower curtain then fight against the tide of human stupidity. There's too many of them, and it's not just that they're ignorant, it's not just that they get angry when they're revealed to be ignorant, it's that they get angry when people suggest they can't go on being ignorant. e.g. an illiterate man who gets defensive and frustrated when he's forced to read, and can't. These people consider it a fundemental right to be happy, successful, and obliviously dumb. When you suggest they can't, you're not just insulting them, you're messing with the natural order of things.
The only way to deal with these people is to have less of them. Birth control and wars. I'd really like to see more birth control (the male birth control pill, when it arrives, will be a revolution on par with the female pill), but I'm expecting more wars. So it's off to the trenches with you, little Johnny Illterate.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
best argument yet in favor of abortion.
What do you suggest? If you want to have a say, you have to get involved in the process.
For a long time, many sensible people have scorned politics, laughed at the Christian right and stayed home on election day. Well, guess what? They control everything now. The process can be ugly at times, but you ignore it at your own peril.
Science is naturally polarized. It's a threat to anyone who depends upon the public perception that authority is always right. In the era of Karl Rove, science is anti-Republican.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Objectivism isn't a religion
Actually it is- but like most religions, it has its fundamentalists and its moderates.
and you don't have to be an Objectivist to subscribe to the scientific method.
You also don't have to be a Roman Catholic to believe in the Virgin Birth (Islamics do as well), or a Buddhist to follow the eightfold path. What is your point?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Researchers are political too, and politics and dissemination of information is important.
9 /27/1905846.html
Politicians do have a place in the plan.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/Suzuki/2006/0
I don't want to suggest that researchers are unethical (most people, even scientists and lawyers are quite ethical IMO) but it isn't reasonable to assume someone will respond neutrally and unbiased about their own field of work.
Much of our technology is due to the passion of the researchers, which clearly involves their own views and opinions.
"It's just the superstition and willful arrogance of assuming that what you see is real, and what you don't see isn't."
Well, excuuuuuse the scientists for ignoring hallucinations and fevre-dreams, and being so narrow-minded that they only use valid evidence in their considerations.
Where were you when the voynix came?
What if a teacher wants to start up a discussion about whether homosexuality is a mental disorder? What if a scientist wants federal money to evaluate racial differences dealing with violent behavior and intelligence? What if a doctor reports statistical information stating that children of interracial relationships have a higher birth defect rate? What if someone produces a study that indicates faith is related to low intelligence?
... they can probably find a study that demonizes them. And then they put out books like the Bell Curve.
A lot of people find that such discussions would terribly offensive and harmful to the social order. It's also easy to find scientific data which will prove just about anything. It could be because of small sample size or faulty data, but if you pick and choose the information you'll get what you want. If someone has a grudge against blacks/homosexuals/women/men/heterosexuals/whites
Some people have gone to jail for arguing that the Holocaust never happened. In Muslim countries, people have faced the death penalty for alleged slurs against religious doctrine.
My point is that everybody has some beliefs that they feel should go unchallenged. Whether it is their faith in God, their belief in racial equality, their rejection of the supernatural, opposition/support of abortion rights, etc. Regardless of the facts.
Where would you draw the line about debate? Are there discussions which should not take place?
It said the government should not support science education programs that 'include concepts that are derived from ideology,' an apparent reference to creationism and its ideological cousin, intelligent design."
Since intelligent design is an ideology, then opposition to ID is also an ideology and the government should take care to avoid that as well? Don't they see the trap this falls into?
All they are essentially saying "We want to make sure the government doesn't fund ideologies.... except ours 'cuz ours is right!"
I disagree with ID, but there has got to be a better way.
"religious ideology of objectivism"
A +religion
j ective
Nice oxymoron, if its an objective ideology then it can't be religious, can it. (that's a rhetorical question the faithful will likely answer incorrectly, the answer is no its no religious)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define%3
-a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
-sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system
-A system of ideas and rules for behavior based on supernatural explanations
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+ob
-undistorted by emotion or personal bias; based on observable phenomena
-emphasizing or expressing things as perceived without distortion of personal feelings, insertion of fictional matter, or interpretation
"When scientists start attempting to use governmental censorship"
The reason these scientists are banding together is because science is being censored by religious zealots through the government, just like those facist islamist states. The objective of their organization is not to censor but to bring objectiveness to a government which affects all of us, christians, muslims, buddhists, aethiests, etc.
Its funny how the zealots believe that stopping them from forcing their religion on the rest of us is somehow censorship. Nobody is taking your religion away, just keep it to yourself and out of OUR government.
"the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical"
- Thomas Jefferson 1779
You make an interesting point, but which do you prefer - Government using Reason or Government using Religion? A period where Faith overrules Reason is known as a "Dark Age", whereas a time where Reason overrules Faith is known as an "Enlightened Age" or a "Renaissance".
I don't see any real difference between the two- Reason without Faith becomes inhuman rather quickly (after all, the obvious answer to global warming would be nuclear war- allowing the evolutionary process to start over with better, radiation hardened species); and as you say, Faith without Reason is the Dark Ages.
Enlightenment and Renaissance only happens when the two are in balance.
I'll choose SEFORA as friends. I prefer Technocrats over Talibans.
Well, I do too- notice I posted this same discussion to Technocrat.net- but being a technocrat does not neccessarily have to decry faith- in fact, that's the difference between Engineering and Science (practical vs theoretical).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"Objectivism isn't a religion"
Marxist Hacker was correct in his claim. Ayn Rand's ideology of "objectivism" includes an element where it makes a strong faith assertion concerning religious matters.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I mean, you don't often hear things like, "Man, that new quarterback who nobody has ever heard of is so freaking overrated" because that wouldn't make any damn sense, would it?
Sorry, feel free to moderate this one overrated and off-topic as you wish, oh intelligent moderators.
Honestly. Science is science. There are ways to come up with scientific proof. Belief, faith or anything supernatural has no room in scientific research. Why is this necessary? Is the US becoming a theocracy, where you may only come up with scientific finds that don't contradict some book, teaching or preaching? When I first heard about creationism and that some people try to push that theocentric mumbo jumbo into classrooms, I was first of all checking the calendar to see if it's 1st of April. Then I noticed it's real.
What does that mean? Well, what it will mean in the long run is, that scientists who don't want to endure the hassle to fight past the clerical bullshit will emigrate. There are quite a few secular countries that won't limit you in your research, and they will gladly scoop up anyone who wants to come and do their research there. If anything, it will be bad for the US economy in the long run if this isn't put to a halt.
I'm not saying that religion doesn't have its place. But keep it out of matters that matter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Group Fights Politicizing Science and Engineering"
Isn't what they are doing exactly what the title says they are fighting against? Don't get me wrong, I'm for what they are doing, but shouldn't the title read more like "Group Fights Ignorance/Misuse of Science and Engineering in Politics"?
This sig all sigs devours
Well, excuuuuuse the scientists for ignoring hallucinations and fevre-dreams, and being so narrow-minded that they only use valid evidence in their considerations.
All of life is merely hallucination and fevre-dreams, and words like "valid evidence" I've read before from trials presided over by Bishops and Mullahs. So excuse me for being somewhat skeptical that a human being can be unbiased.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Seems wierd, I looked up the definition of religion
"religion
2 entries found for religion.
To select an entry, click on it.
Main Entry: religion
Pronunciation: ri-'li-j&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back -- more at RELY
1 a : the state of a religious b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
- religionless adjective
"
Doesnt fit anything there, you would have to be religious to stretch a skepticism (which is what science is) into a religion, and the codified way of reducing skepticism as an ideological code similar to faith.
Also, science doesnt require you have actual faith in anything, but you can have faith in God or Gods or your little toe, and you are still a scientist.
So it seems to be opposite of a religion since there is no faith implied, there is no resounding philosophy required to be followed, only the rules that you cant take things on faith, and a way to codify a way to avoid a faith based decision.
You cant be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time, but you can be a scientist and a Christian at the same time, or a Scientist and a Muslim at the same time, or a Scientist and a beleiver in large magical strands of spaggehti that rules the worlds (ramen), so there seems to be some kind of disconnect between what a religion is and what a scientist, especially someone that actually IS a scientist and follows the tenets of what that means.
So, instead of being a religion, its more like being in a club were everyone agrees to a set of standards to belong to it.
So, we have some members of organized religions against some members of a club, except the people in the organized religions are trying to say that there views should be considered on equal footing of that with the clubs, even though the club does not want faith based views to affect it, and its part of the clubs charter.
Interesting.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
I am curious; what methods do these scientists intend to use to achieve their agenda? Obviously a central tenet of their philosophy is that science should not be restricted by politically charged interest groups. They argue that science should be free from the effects of political posturing -- essentially popular cultural beliefs are ineffective at choosing the proper course for scientific research, largely because of religious intrusion (but not solely). They seem to be saying that religious thoughts, i.e. thoughts unsupported by empiricism and experiment, are responsible for hampering human progress and development.
Of course, they understand the irony in their attempt to fight the politicizing of science using political methods. They see that one must fight fire with fire. Except that in their case they argue their fire has a fuel stronger than the fuel of religion; a fuel of proof. Of couse, they don't really know the outcome of their research. It could be that research into stem cells leads to a discovery which leads to an invention of some form which unltimately is responsible for the destruction of humanity. Far-fetched? Of course, but nevertheless possible. I am sure they would be willing to admit that they truly have no way to predict the outcome of certain lines of scientific research. They would probably tell us that the utmost care will be taken in such research to prevent misuse of the knowledge gained.
This situation is what brings us to where we are today. Caught between a balance of the known and the unknown. Between trying to figure out what is right, what should be researched and what shouldn't. Using religious principles to guide scientific research is of course wrong. But is it not also wrong to study simply for the sake of study, without at least first having a collective agreement regarding the safety of said study? Witness the idea that a powerful enough particle accelerator could create a tiny black hole which falls into the center of the planet and slowly consumes it, eventually destroying us all. Of course this has yet to actually happen, but the point is that we went ahead and smashed those particles together anyway. And we're still here, for now, but what about the LHC? Or, if it were built, the SSC?
When humanity set off the first nuclear bomb there was talk that it might literally set the world on fire. It seems the truth is nobody was 100% certain it wouldn't.
I some senses science is blind. Experiments are done because we don't know what they're going to produce. If we knew the outcome, we'd need never experiment. So, while I support the idea that science should not be hindered by certain forms of human thought, I also hope that this group doesn't stray to the other extreme. That of electing somebody who throws caution to the wind and a blind eye to scientific progress. The more advanced we get, the more cautious we should be.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Maybe ironic, but no suprise here. Academia is 90% politics. Politicking by scientists is a disease run rampant. My quantum mechanics lecture was editorially spiced with political statements. I've had peer reviews come back stating: "Well I did not understand the article, but I have the utmost respect for *famous scientist on the author list* so it should be published." I cancel subscriptions to monthly and weekly scientific rags regularly because of politically charged articles. Politics uttered by scientists has no more merit than politics uttered by insane vagrants. Except the scientists shout it with less aplomb.
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
So, I MUST believe it because Ayn Rand said so.
Seems wierd, I looked up the definition of religion
Mind revealing where, so that we know the bias of the dictionary used?
Doesnt fit anything there, you would have to be religious to stretch a skepticism (which is what science is) into a religion, and the codified way of reducing skepticism as an ideological code similar to faith.
And yet, Ayn Rand did, and so have several atheists since then, so there's no problem there.
Also, science doesnt require you have actual faith in anything, but you can have faith in God or Gods or your little toe, and you are still a scientist.
Yes you can, but I'm talking about this 527 which claims that science should not have an ideological basis of ANY sort- including the ideology of not having faith in anything.
So it seems to be opposite of a religion since there is no faith implied, there is no resounding philosophy
Everything has a resounding philosophy- especially those who claim to have none, which is a resounding philosophy in and of itself.
In other words, you protest too much and fail to reveal your own biases.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Theism is the ground of the scientific method. The assumption that the laws of physics will stay the same and have stayed the same is a theistic assumption. A non-theist has no reason for assuming that the laws of physics won't change.
A theist who believes that the laws of physics are set by an omnipotent God do. So continue using the scientific method. It will work tomorrow just as well as it worked yesterday.
Objectivists are borrowing from theism.
If my memory of history serves, this is why the scientific method flourished in the monotheistic West.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I disagree. Compassion, Humanity, Empathy are all traits that exist without needing Faith, thank you very much, and those are the traits.. that is, a respect for and an understanding of the emotional content of life.. that prevent rationalized atrocities from occurring, not faith.
You might need Faith to balance reason. I just need some human understanding. Faith not only does not have a monopoly on that, and I would argue that for the common practitioner, it is an obstacle to real understanding by short circuiting the critical thinking process. Those who take their faith very serious AND use reason can of course take it to a much higher level of understanding than most. But it's not a necessary component, just one possible route to understanding.
What's even more exasperating about this situation is that Kerry wouldn't have had the power to change the abortion laws and Bush hasn't done a damn thing about them either. This makes the "my body my right" crowd just as idiotic. Abortion is always a steaming political debate right around an election and then subsides to nothing during the term because the trimester laws aren't budging.
I beg to differ. Have you seen the Supreme Court lately? Do you think the same two people would have been added had Kerry been elected? Do you think we might have had a difference of opinion had Kerry appointed two Judges (for life)? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Supreme Court will have a significant impact on the abortion issue.
I don't care which side you are on, you cannot deny that "something" has been done and we will live with it long after Bush leaves office.
What ever happened to just trying to educate the voters?
Great question. Whay ever happened to education?
I'd like to point out that I wasn't just putting forth Ayn Rand's sect of objectivism, but rather the broader set of those who believe in the concepts of "valid evidence" and "the scientific method". This includes everything from Randian fundamentalists, or as Robert Heinlien named them, Professional Witnesses, to those who believe they can be unbiased in one area of their lives and extremely biased, even discriminatory, in other areas.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Some statements here try to push liberals as being the scientific backbone of the country and conservatives as monkeys that hang on trees and believe every wild thing that comes along.
I am a moderate (try to stick to the middle)... but that just isn't true. I have some conservative aspects to me, but that doesn't mean that I don't hold science as the premier authority on what is and what is not.
In fact, I am much less religious than most that are quite liberal. Everybody has beliefs, even when they try to convince society that they don't really. That said, when I approach any situation I true to determine the truth in it and what is accurate. Many people that I know that are quite far left are just as guilty of believing without thinking. If I took evolution or ID and believed either without thoroughly disecting them, then I've just followed my belief instead of something that I know to be a fact.
People do it every day... whether to the right or to the left. Lets start a new party. The party that uses their brains to accurately determine the truth of what is and what is not.
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
Well, the term "objectivism" specifically refers to her ideology, after all. It is kind of an unfortunate name, because sometimes "objectivism" isn't any more objective than Catholicism.
Where were you when the voynix came?
It has believers.
/. and then another story comes along saying the scientists used improper methods to conduct the exeriment?
True. They believe however because of evidence placed in front of them. Experiements which they can repeat on their own.
It has a codeified set of ideological rules.
Yes, namely that for something to be true, it has to be observable and repeatable. The horror!
It has stupid traditions that are so accepted that nobody questions them.
Whoa there, I think you hurt your brain too much. The 'traditions' which you claim are always being challanged. Newtonian physics has been replaced with Einsteins theories. His theories are also being challenged. At any rate, much of what we know has been tested time and again. What do you gain by retesting something after its already been tested to death?
Looks like a religious ideology to me.
Only if you're a moron.
Well, that's what the Pope said recently- and in response the religion of peace killed nuns and rioted. But that's not my point. My point is that an unbiased human being has never existed- call it Seeber's Uncertainty Principle: Any experiment run by human beings will discover a scientific truth compatible with the biases of the human being runing the experiment.
I guess that's why we never figured out how to build vehicals that can go to the moon and back. Or why we don't have nuclear power, or microwaves or computers. The truth is that if you're trying to prove something and thus setup an improper experiement, you will be found out when others look at your research.
Well, it's more along these lines "I refuse to think, and instead I believe in only what I see and not what I don't see". It's a little more complex than that- the traditions of peer review and committees muddle the concept out more to "I believe what is printed in peer reviewed journals without asking who the anonymous peers are", but it works out to the same thing.
You've seen god, hell, angels and the devil? Journals do get reviewed. How many bogus experiements have appeared here on
Proof is in the eye of the beholder- it is a religious belief that doesn't really exist. Both subjective and objective thinkers are useful, but both are fooling themselves when they claim a lack of bias.
You need to read David Hume I think.
Nice oxymoron, if its an objective ideology then it can't be religious, can it. (that's a rhetorical question the faithful will likely answer incorrectly, the answer is no its no religious)
Human beings are incapable of separating themselves from bias- so it doesn't matter if you are faithfull or unfaithful, "objective ideology" will always be religious because human beings are incapable of being objective, as you have proven with the rest of your post.
The reason these scientists are banding together is because science is being censored by religious zealots through the government, just like those facist islamist states. The objective of their organization is not to censor but to bring objectiveness to a government which affects all of us, christians, muslims, buddhists, aethiests, etc.
Which of course is impossible, since all of these ideologies are mutually exclusive. Thus the belief they can bring "objectiveness", which doens't exist, to government is at best a waste of time.
Its funny how the zealots believe that stopping them from forcing their religion on the rest of us is somehow censorship. Nobody is taking your religion away, just keep it to yourself and out of OUR government.
Any time you stop another person from speaking, and discriminate against them in job applications, you are committing censorship, whether you admit it or not. As I said, human beings are incapable of being truly objective- and with this line you've proved that you ARE NOT OBJECTIVE.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"All of life is merely hallucination and fevre-dreams"
Tommy Chong, is that you???
Where were you when the voynix came?
Much of the funding for the physical and biological sciences comes from the federal government. Once you start trying to get money from the USG, you are playing an inherently political game - the overselling of research, for example, isn't rational but rather a tool to get people less informed than you to give them money. While the conditions for research funding aren't necessarily partisan, they are poltical by nature.
In addition, the ends to which science and technology strive are legitimate topics for societal and political discussion. Scientists have taken a wide variety of stands on the development and technology, such as nuclear weaponry, and expecting others to refrain from similar stands.
The problem with the current Adminstration isn't that politics have interfered with science, because they probably have for a long time, but that the people running the government try to exclude or ignore any opinions or data that do not support their goals. It uses science like bad management uses management consultants - to give support for actions already decided on. Reality is less forgiving of studied and steadfast ignorance than any group of people could hope to be; the selective use of science or the use of flawed science or reasoning to support a policy makes the policy less likely to succeed. The variety of interference in scientific decision making only makes the goals that the Administration claims to desire harder to reach, and increases their costs.
I disagree. Compassion, Humanity, Empathy are all traits that exist without needing Faith, thank you very much,
Prove it. There's no rational reasoning to assume that you need to take care of anybody other than yourself; in fact, doing so is extremely detrimental to your own profit.
and those are the traits.. that is, a respect for and an understanding of the emotional content of life.. that prevent rationalized atrocities from occurring, not faith.
Except, those emotions ARE faith. They have no reasonable proof behind them; they have no "valid evidence" of their existance.
You might need Faith to balance reason. I just need some human understanding.
Two words that mean exactly the same thing.
Faith not only does not have a monopoly on that, and I would argue that for the common practitioner, it is an obstacle to real understanding by short circuiting the critical thinking process.
If you were really being a critical thinker, you'd abandon the fake emotionalism.
Those who take their faith very serious AND use reason can of course take it to a much higher level of understanding than most. But it's not a necessary component, just one possible route to understanding.
If you use Reason Alone, you will never progress to having an emotional life, because emotionalism is beyond reason, in the realm of Faith.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Formed by two ex-Clinton advisers and someone who wants an abortion pill on the market - and people who dislike the current administration, to boot - six weeks before an election.
This wouldn't make it into the NYT, except for Bush Derangement Syndrome.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
You mean as opposed to sitting there letting the religous wackjobs push us back to the darkages?
Good point. It is too easy to forget that there are two separate nations that both have the official name "China".
Where were you when the voynix came?
Interesting. Contradictory, but interesting.
From Encyclopedia Britannica (while I enjoy Wikipedia, I don't use it as a serious source of information):
Note that an ideology sets out to both explain and CHANGE the world. The scientists use the scientific method to explain it.
I marked you troll not because your logic was faulty, but because your post was nothing more than toying with semantics in an attempt to generate a response.
Creationism may fit the common definition of theory, in that it is a hunch that some find appealing. In no way is it functionally equivalent to a scientific theory, such as evolution.
Creationism has sought to advance itself primarily via the political arena, and therefore fits the common definition of ideology. Evolution, in contrast, only fits the formal definition of ideology, in that it is an organized structure of concepts.
By freely mixing common and formal definitions in your statements and failing to note what the differences are, you've essentially written something devoid of content.
______ This mind intentionally left blank.
Can you really say they're fighting politicization by forming a political interest group?
True. They believe however because of evidence placed in front of them. Experiements which they can repeat on their own.
/. and then another story comes along saying the scientists used improper methods to conduct the exeriment?
Experiments that they never actually repeat, presented to them by anonymous sources that they never actually question.
Yes, namely that for something to be true, it has to be observable and repeatable. The horror!
I find no philosophy horrific; save one: intolerance in the name of tolerance.
Whoa there, I think you hurt your brain too much. The 'traditions' which you claim are always being challanged.
Who, recently, has bothered to challenge peer review?
Newtonian physics has been replaced with Einsteins theories. His theories are also being challenged.
The theories are the outcome of the traditions, not the traditions themselves.
At any rate, much of what we know has been tested time and again. What do you gain by retesting something after its already been tested to death?
Yet we never actually test the traditions themselves- peer review for instance, but there are others. The theories are the work of the system, not the system itself.
I guess that's why we never figured out how to build vehicals that can go to the moon and back.
Did we? Reliably? Seems to me we had more failure than success in that area- which is the reason mankind has not set foot on the moon in 20 years.
Or why we don't have nuclear power, or microwaves or computers. The truth is that if you're trying to prove something and thus setup an improper experiement, you will be found out when others look at your research.
None of these are perfect, they all just barely work. However, the problem isn't with the successes or failures- but with the blind faith in the system itself.
You've seen god, hell, angels and the devil?
Yes, but that's not the point. In fact, it's as much beside the point as bringing in Newton vs Einstien- that's the outcome of the system of Reasonable Theology, not the system itself.
Journals do get reviewed.
Yes, that's the meaning of peer review- but why trust the reviewer, whom you don't know, over the peer committee, who you don't know? Or for that matter, why trust the peer committee, who you don't know, over the reviewer, who you don't know? Ultimately, it's all taken on Faith.
How many bogus experiements have appeared here on
Once again, that's the system working as designed, not questioning the system itself.
You need to read David Hume I think.
I have- I think he's as biased as any other human.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"I'm smart, everyone else is stupid, therefore people who think like me should run the world unchecked by the people we decide are stupid." How is this different than "I follow the true God, everyone else is an evil sinner, therefore I should run the world unchecked by the people I decide are sinners."?
A very astute observation. Just like I wouldn't want the creepy social conservatives over at FreeRepublic in charge of things, I would abhor the rage-filled and perpetually offended nuts at DemocraticUnderground running the country.
Not that I RTFA, but I'm guessing the "Group Fighting Politicizing Science and Engineering" is all for pushing as much gloabal warming legislation thru as possible.
And that's a bad thing? How about actually evaluating the merits of each as they come? One thing the US is a long way from is building out communities along the lines of minimising long term dependence on petroleum. Fly over rural farming communities and notice how many houses are way the heck out there by themselves, thus requiring roads (and eventual road maintenance) and all that travel. We truly enjoy our space, but it can be a burden...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Evolution has no explanation for the arising of life out of nonliving matter.
What in the name of sweet baby Jesus are you on about son?
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
Postmodernism (depending on the flavour) has a distinctly relativistic and anti-scientific bent. Some postmodernist sincerely posit that there is no such thing as objective truth, that all knowldege is "situated", and that science is no more valid than any other belief structure.
For many postmodernists, science is claimed to be just another tool of oppression for the white, Eurocentric, militaristic, capitalistic patriarchy.
My brother saw a report on CNN, that showed that 92% of the US residents are religious in one way or another. The reporter woman read this number, became silent for a moment her eyes widened and then she said, -This means that 8% of Americans are atheists, that seems awfully high!
I personally think 92% religious population is awfully high, but that could be the explanation for the politicization of science and engineering.
You can't handle the truth.
HEHE might as well call your membership to the local YMCA as a religion then.
I used marriam webster m-w.com, I guess this must be like a politically biased liberal web log, i dont know, I always thought it was pretty definitive.
But remember the next time you enter your local town hall meeting to remind them that they are all following a codified set of rules of which violation will mean you are expelled and that it is a religion.
Science is a club, and these people are specifically zealous club members that dont want to lose the entire point of the club by making it worthless from a point of persuing knowledge.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Note that an ideology sets out to both explain and CHANGE the world. The scientists use the scientific method to explain it.
And the engineers and atheists use the scientific method to change the world. It's used for both, no problem there. Of course, the entire intent of this 527 group though is to use the scientific method politically- to change the world.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Just wait until you post the first comment in a story and get a Redundant moderation. And yes, it has happened to me before. Hopefully metamoderation will fix ya right up :-)
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
You apparently do need faith to achieve any measure of understanding, then.
;)
Co-operative living is a survival trait. In a more subjective level, it makes me feel good to help people, but on a more objective level, it also makes them more likely to help me should I need it. As long as I do not give more than I can afford to lose, I can easily consider that an investment in my future.. like any other investment, it may pay off, or it may not. So don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
Luckily, since it makes me feel good to help someone, I can invest quite a bit without really hurting myself. There is nothing detrimental about it. Never mind the fact that my emotional well being does have a direct, real, observable impact on my health (stress kills, remember?), as well as a more indirect impact on my quality of life (or more to point, how I perceive my quality of life.. better, when I feel better). So as long as I am not giving away my food until I starve, my money till I go broke, or my time until I lose my job, my wife, or what have, what is so detrimental about it again? Once I've met my survival standards, the rest is gravy. At some point X, more resources, power, or money don't help my standard of life increase any more. Wouldn't then the pursuit of maximum profit, power, etc, then start being detrimental to me? What then, should I do with all that extra time any energy? Post on slashdot?
That's Faith? That's basic understanding right there. You'd have to either be an idiot, or a slave to Logic.. not reason, Logic.. not to see that. Observe. Emotions have basic functions in our existence, which is to help us out in situations where logic and reason are too slow, or too limited to generate acceptable results. Paying attention to them.. not giving control to them, but paying attention.. results in better quality of life. There is no faith in that. That's direct observation and experience at work.
I don't know what you're talking about claiming there is no proof of their existence... the chemical reactions involved are getting better defined every day. Understanding that we have not fully solved the puzzle of life yet is not faith. That's truth. Realizing we have emotions, whether we know EXACTLY what they are or not, is not faith.. that's obvious.
You can play semantics if you want, but Faith in the context we have been discussing in this thread involves belief in religious systems, and there is nothing faith based or even particularly illogical about accepting emotions as a part of your existence as a human being, and a necessary one at that. Fear has, historically, been a pretty freaking important survival trait, after all.
It may not always obey the laws of reason. That, however, is a good thing. Reason is limited too. That is why using both, and being a slave to neither, results in optimal responses to the most number of situations. Ah, but that's faith, right, because a study hasn't been done. Oh well.
As much as we would all like to believe that scientists are selflessly searching for the "truth", they have motivations similar to everybody else (greed, fame, power, money, personel vendettas, etc). They also are capable of political bias. These motivations and bias can color the "truth".
BTW, this is one of the funniest links that pokes fun at politized science
Prove it. There's no rational reasoning to assume that you need to take care of anybody other than yourself; in fact, doing so is extremely detrimental to your own profit.
Lone wolves tend not to breed as well. Take care of your tribe and your tribe will do better == reason enough.
Except, those emotions ARE faith. They have no reasonable proof behind them; they have no "valid evidence" of their existance.
No they aren't. It's called valuing life and having empathy. If you have no empathy, you're a sociopath.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
HEHE might as well call your membership to the local YMCA as a religion then.
It is the "Young Men's CHRISTIAN Association", after all. But more important than that- I'm asserting that mankind is a religious creature- he can no more divorce himself from bias and ideology than he can survive having his head cut off.
used marriam webster m-w.com, I guess this must be like a politically biased liberal web log, i dont know, I always thought it was pretty definitive.
Actually, both Marriam and Webster's original dictionaries were written with very specific political biases in mind (IIRC, Webster's first dictionary defined a Tory as "An idiot with a lot of money", or something of the sort). I see no reason to believe that they've changed that much.
But remember the next time you enter your local town hall meeting to remind them that they are all following a codified set of rules of which violation will mean you are expelled and that it is a religion.
Yep- Robert's Rules of Order. But everybody knows that Democracy is a Religion- it's even got idolatrous statues. I haven't seen any statues of Lady Objective recently- but I might be missing something.
Science is a club, and these people are specifically zealous club members that dont want to lose the entire point of the club by making it worthless from a point of persuing knowledge.
Which is fine- as long as they admit it's an exclusive club and extremely biased.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If one makes a faith assertion about religious matters, it is a form of religion.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Many people look at this entire debate and see science and religion as opposing each other. But that is a very narrow minded perspective, and any person who is dedicated to either should recognize that. Scientists use mathematics and scientific principles to explain the world around us, while religion depends on stories and mythology. What makes these different?
In a society where the majority of the people come from judeo-christian cultures, one simply needs to look at the context of where the religion comes from to see a scientific explaination. Take Joel for example. He prophesied that in the last days "The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood" (Joel 2:31). How many of us have sat outside during a summer evening and seen the moon a deep red color because of smog? If you were him, how else would you explain something when you don't know what smog is, nor do the people around you? I think the "moon into blood" is a pretty good decription.
It is really that simple. Religion and science simply are using different perspectives on the same event or idea. Principles from both certainly can be true. I am a engineer/scientist who has deep religious beliefs. I don't see a relationship conflict, I see a complementary relationship. One can use scientific principles to supplement their religious understanding and vice versa. It is like speaking multiple languages, it helps you understand something better if you can see it in both.
That says it all. If scientists want something, go for it. Create a party. Support cross-party congressman based are their expressed views. Political freedom. But the claim of non-partisanship is ridiculous.
It's ironic. Science, the bastion of "just the facts", claims something utterly bogus. I guess, noone can fool a scientist, unless the scienctist himself wants to be fooled.
Have you read my journal today?
thanks for fucking trying though
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Not necessarily just gloabal warming - more like, "we will support those candidates who carefully evaluate the scientific data ... and come to the same conclusion we do"
A couple years ago, my sister was enrolled in a biology class while attending a state college here in Southern California. I asked here, "Cool, so you're finally learning about evolution?" to which she replied, to my utter astonishment, "Yeah, but I don't really buy it." We were brought up more or less secularly -- though she did attend a church school for a couple years in grade school -- and though further to the right than me and wavers between identifying herself as a Democrat or Republican, she is still a class example of the California fiscal conservative/social liberal.
Obviously, I wasn't going to persuade her of the scientific evidence supporting evolution over the course of a family dinner, but I did ask her what she made of the fact that her state-run school, funded with her taxes and backed by almost every expert in the subject both in government agencies and academia at large, accepted as fact the scientific theory she wasn't buying. A conspiracy theory so grand that, as E.O. Wilson suggests, God is in on it? She resisted but I could see this had some impact. She has since adopted a more indifferent view on the matter.
I'd like to see at least one question addressing a politician's view on evolution in every debate -- starting with presidential debates. (In fact, I'd like to see whole debates between candidates over the subject of evolution and the teaching of biology.) I know neither side has an interest in pursuing this. For Republicans, it puts them on the spot with their fundamentalist base. And for Democrats, it just underlines their lack of "strong moral values" (whatever the hell that means.) But for me it speaks to the core a public official's integrity, honesty, and capacity to make reasoned decision based on evidence (or, if you will, conflicting intelligence data.)
I hope this group can make some headway with the public on such matters.
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
You apparently do need faith to achieve any measure of understanding, then.
;)
Well, yes- but so does every other human being on the planet, for we are creatures of faith and reason.
Co-operative living is a survival trait. In a more subjective level, it makes me feel good to help people, but on a more objective level, it also makes them more likely to help me should I need it.
Spoken like somebody who has never been cheated.
As long as I do not give more than I can afford to lose, I can easily consider that an investment in my future.. like any other investment, it may pay off, or it may not. So don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
These days it's hard to live without investing everything. But that's not compassion, that's enlightened selfishness. Compassion is sacrificing for others- investing what you can't afford to use, to your own detriment. THAT requires Faith in the other person- Faith that they will do the same for you.
Luckily, since it makes me feel good to help someone, I can invest quite a bit without really hurting myself. There is nothing detrimental about it. Never mind the fact that my emotional well being does have a direct, real, observable impact on my health (stress kills, remember?), as well as a more indirect impact on my quality of life (or more to point, how I perceive my quality of life.. better, when I feel better). So as long as I am not giving away my food until I starve, my money till I go broke, or my time until I lose my job, my wife, or what have, what is so detrimental about it again? Once I've met my survival standards, the rest is gravy. At some point X, more resources, power, or money don't help my standard of life increase any more. Wouldn't then the pursuit of maximum profit, power, etc, then start being detrimental to me? What then, should I do with all that extra time any energy? Post on slashdot?
A great statement of Faith- one could almost call it a creed. But what's your objective evidence for it?
I don't know what you're talking about claiming there is no proof of their existence... the chemical reactions involved are getting better defined every day. Understanding that we have not fully solved the puzzle of life yet is not faith. That's truth. Realizing we have emotions, whether we know EXACTLY what they are or not, is not faith.. that's obvious.
I see no proof that the chemical reactions are what the peer reviewed journals say they are- it's all just conjecture. But then again- if I was to be truly objective- I've got a problem beliving in peer review journals as well.
You can play semantics if you want, but Faith in the context we have been discussing in this thread involves belief in religious systems, and there is nothing faith based or even particularly illogical about accepting emotions as a part of your existence as a human being, and a necessary one at that. Fear has, historically, been a pretty freaking important survival trait, after all.
But just because something is a survival trait, does not make it any less illusionary than hunger, which is also a survival trait. It's the meaning that is illusionary.
It may not always obey the laws of reason. That, however, is a good thing. Reason is limited too. That is why using both, and being a slave to neither, results in optimal responses to the most number of situations. Ah, but that's faith, right, because a study hasn't been done. Oh well.
Now you're begining to see what I've been asserting all along- we are beings of *both* reason and faith, and removing one from the other is nonsensical at best.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
No- but you're close. Didn't we already have this discussion a while back though?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You are confused about the difference between religion and philosophy, or an epistemological position.
No, you're confused about what I'm saying. I'm saying there is, essentially, no difference between ideology and specific sects of philosophy; of which religions are merely a subset.
That the validity of the scientific method has nothing to do one's stance on Objectivism.
Interesting, but totally beside the point of a 527 wanting to remove ideology from the scientific method.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Lone wolves tend not to breed as well. Take care of your tribe and your tribe will do better == reason enough.
Yes, but human beings aren't neccessarily wolves- and "reason enough" is not objective, which is "reason alone".
No they aren't. It's called valuing life and having empathy. If you have no empathy, you're a sociopath.
And the fact sociopaths exist proves that empathy is SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE. Subjective things are in the realm of FAITH, not REASON.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"No- but you're close. Didn't we already have this discussion a while back though?"
I think it must have been a dream.
Where were you when the voynix came?
...and 18 years later he gets a vote.
Rove understood this and whatever you say about the man, if he fools you once and fools you twice and keeps on fooling you, it's not his fault.
I blame God. God made people dumb AND he forbid them from eating the fruit of knowledge. It's not the devil's fault, he's just as god made him.
Theological notions aside, once you know about the depressing truths of human nature, it would be in everyone's best interest to shape their government in such a way that reason weighs more than emotions in the policy-making process.
Like, with laws.
It sure beats the back and forth.
You can't take the sky from me...
This is like when people say it's not about the money---it's about the money. What I see here is not about all scientists banding together to keep politics out of science, but about some scientists banding together to keep ideologies that conflict with their own in check. I'm sorry, y'all, but scientists are just as human and, sorry to say, just as political and as emotional and as emotionally manipulative as the rest of us. And the people who are doing this are just as politically motivated as anyone else.
I hear Dems say "Keep your morals off my body!" when referring to abortion or drugs and then demand universal healthcare or public smoking bans
Public_health != morals;
You can't take the sky from me...
"One could also conclude that creationism is a theory"
Only if you have no idea what "theory" means in the scientic sense. Next, you can call cherry pie a theory.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Don't confuse the political process with the scientific method. The scientific method is a standard set of steps that analyze and explain. This group is not using analytical tools (well, I guess telephone polls are analytical) and they SURE aren't following the seven (or was that six?) sequential steps of the scientific method when they run a pro-evolution advertisement in Kansas.
Instead, they intend to use the political process, including political fundraising and advertising, to change the world.
The theory of evolution is as the name implies, just a theory. As with alot of stuff in science its an theory until it can be proven, and the results repeated. Everything can be disputed, and if some things doesnt make sence, the scientists have to go back and rework their theory. Even if many theories as considered facts, like evolution or big bang, it still remains a theory. I guess those are pretty hard to prove and repeat the results in our life span. Religion on the other hand presents a answer, this is how it is, no ifs or buts about it, it says so in my holy bood. You cant really dispute it (but there are different interpidtations of it). Either you believe it or you dont. I dont believe in god, but i also acknowledge that there is a posibility for a devine creator "creature" since it cant really be proven if it exists or not. I have no problem with a co-existence of god and science. It could be as simple as science is uncovering the creators creation, and in so doing just shows that the bible and other holy scriptures have it wrong. About global warming and such, as one noted that the effects might not hit for about a 100 years or so. If the effects doesnt harm us, does that mean that we could simply ignore it ? The debate isnt so much about the short term effects, but the long term. And long term effects are much harder to fix, so i guess its importent to start early to try to avoid them. I guess its more a question about "survival of the species".
You're doing nothing but playing semantics.
-I said "more likely" to help me. Not guaranteed. I've been cheated many times. I've also had a lot of support and opportunity dropped in my lap. It would be illogical to assume that being nice to people in NO WAY affects their behaviour towards me, wouldn't it?
-What's really great is compassion results in generally better results for me personally. So I would argue that there is no difference between "enlightened selfishness" and "compassion". We are hard wired to feel compassion because it's a useful trait that has generated useful results for millions of years. I don't know where you are getting your very arbitrary definition of "compassion" from. In my book, it's simply treating people with respect and caring. You might be MORE compassionate if you give your last crust of bread to a starving child and tighten your belt another notch, but that doesn't mean that it's not compassionate to give the child half of the bread and to keep half of it for yourself.
-If you're calling hunger "illusory", then I doubt we really have much more to discuss. You're so far into a semantical playground this isn't going to go anywhere even remotely interesting. You go ahead and ignore that hungry feeling, and let me know how illusory the message it's trying to send you is. If you don't eat, you'll die. Are you arguing that survival is not a "real", or "rational" enough of a motivation for you?
You're doing nothing but playing semantics.
So is anybody who believes that Faith does not need to exist, merely because of a bias taken in Faith!
-I said "more likely" to help me. Not guaranteed. I've been cheated many times. I've also had a lot of support and opportunity dropped in my lap. It would be illogical to assume that being nice to people in NO WAY affects their behaviour towards me, wouldn't it?
Actually, from what I've seen, support and opportunity come from those who *believe* that being nice to people affects their behavior towards them. In other words, it's a self-fullfilling prophecy; not that different from any other religious act.
-What's really great is compassion results in generally better results for me personally.
True compassion results in generally better results for everybody- and worse results for the individual. Sometimes deadly results.
So I would argue that there is no difference between "enlightened selfishness" and "compassion". We are hard wired to feel compassion because it's a useful trait that has generated useful results for millions of years. I don't know where you are getting your very arbitrary definition of "compassion" from. In my book, it's simply treating people with respect and caring. You might be MORE compassionate if you give your last crust of bread to a starving child and tighten your belt another notch, but that doesn't mean that it's not compassionate to give the child half of the bread and to keep half of it for yourself.
All definitions, being human generated, also have biases. What I'm talking about is the difference between selfish pretense to compassion and empathy, and sacrifice.
-If you're calling hunger "illusory", then I doubt we really have much more to discuss. You're so far into a semantical playground this isn't going to go anywhere even remotely interesting. You go ahead and ignore that hungry feeling, and let me know how illusory the message it's trying to send you is. If you don't eat, you'll die. Are you arguing that survival is not a "real", or "rational" enough of a motivation for you?
No, I'm merely saying that it isn't objective.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"Human beings are incapable of separating themselves from bias- so it doesn't matter if you are faithfull or unfaithful, "objective ideology" will always be religious because human beings are incapable of being objective, as you have proven with the rest of your post."
Wrong, it is possible for humans to seperate themselves from bias and think objectively otherwise the world would still be flat and the center of the universe, but that is beside the point. If "objective ideology" is not objective due to bias then its not "objective ideology" is it. You can argue that objectiveness is an impossibility and there would be some fine debating points but proposing to define "objective ideology" as religious because of inherent falliablity in human character is idiocy and attempting do so only creats an oxymoron because of the definition of two words.
"Thus the belief they can bring "objectiveness", which doens't exist, to government is at best a waste of time."
I wouldn't exactly call it a waste of time. While it is true that it will be impossible to bring objectiveness to politics they may have an affect. If all they do as a group is inspire some voters their is the possibility of having some impact on the political fabric.
"Any time you stop another person from speaking, and discriminate against them in job applications, you are committing censorship, whether you admit it or not."
WTF? What do job applications have to do with seperation of church and state? I absolutely agree with your statement but I don't see the relationship to the originial intent of speration between church and state in the United States government and the religious fervor trying to turn the USA and its schools into a religious state. There is freedom to practice religion in the United States but it is illegal to use the government of the United States to create a state religion to be forced upon all its citizens, try reading the works of Thomas Jefferson.
"As I said, human beings are incapable of being truly objective- and with this line you've proved that you ARE NOT OBJECTIVE."
Whether or not I'm objective has absolutely nothing to do with the meaning of objectivity and religion. Any one who attempts to associate the two only succeeds in creating a goofy oxymoron.
I could just as easily say most Republicans are living in a fantasy world where history isn't what actually happened, it's what should have happened such that the present authorities are cast in the most flattering possible light, all problems are automatically the other side's fault, all mistakes the result of meddling by the opposition.
Iraq isn't about weapons of mass destruction! Where did you get a silly idea like that? It's about spreading democracy, just like we told you from the beginning. The insurgency is in its last throes -- mission accomplished!
9/11 was all Clinton's fault, because, um, well, Lewinsky, PRESIDENT HAVING SEX, bad! Except that it was actually Saddam Hussein's fault, because he had strong ties to Al-Qaida, well, okay, not strong ties exactly, but he talked to them, well okay, he didn't talk to them exactly, but he knew about them, well okay, he kind of hated their guts more than we did, but dammit, he was breeding terrorists. We can't have Saddam breeding terrorists over there, not when we can take over and, according to our own intelligence analysts, do a much better job of breeding even more terrorists.
And if you have a problem with that, we might have a guy listening in to your phone conversations. You know, to help safeguard your freedom and privacy from those terrorists who hate freedom. (Or we might not, no way you can find out, because we won't even allow you to sue over it.)
What I want to know is, where are all the ultra right-wingers who were threatening bloody revolution in the event of all the anti-civil-liberty crap that's happening before our eyes? Was there a footnote in that threat I missed, "Offer only valid if a Democrat is in office?"
True, but the way I've been reading Marxist Harcker is that he is stating that the scientific method is part of a religious ideology (Objectivism). I must admit that I missed the Ayn Rand connection when I first read his/her posts. But, even so, I do disagree with the thought that scientists are part of a religious group. And, just because Ayn Rand proposed that Objectivism had metaphysical components, doesn't mean I buy into that line of thought.
Objectivism and religion may both be subsets of "specific sects of philosophy", but that doesn't mean that there is no difference between objectivism and religion, or that objectivism is a subset of religion.
It's all the same- based on faith and no real reason to discriminate one from the other.
Interesting, but totally beside the point of your original statement to which I was objecting. You called the scientific method is an ideology of the "religion" of objectivism; I pointed out that the scientific method is independent of objectivism. Don't change the subject.
And I showed that lots of religious traditions are independant of the religion in which they are practiced. You're the one changing the subject away from the irony of a 527 trying to say that science isn't an ideology.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Ok, I think I get what you're saying.
Basically, there is no such thing as reason in your book, since nothing can be known for sure to truly objective standards.
Yet you say we have reason.
Maybe I don't get it after all then.
You have a small point. While a faith-based religious assertion is not in itself "a religion", it is religious in nature. It is part of some religion.
"A religion is an entire institution involving a comprehensive belief system....historical tradition...etc."
Now that's nonsense. Your overly restrictive definition ends up excluding a large proportion of believers who just don't go to church or whatever.
Ayn Rand's objectivism does make religious assertions.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"Don't like my smoke in a public place? Leave"
So, if you engage in a form of physical assault against others, the onus is on them to scram? So much for smoking being a personal choice: your idea is that it is something to be forced on people (if they don't like it, leave). I hope you like my similar idea of going into this public space and throwing metal-tipped darts in random directions. If one hits you, it is your problem. Don't like it, leave.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"empathy is SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE. Subjective things are in the realm of FAITH, not REASON."
e nt=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q= define%3A+empathy&btnG=Search
Wrong, empathy is an emotion, it is part of our survival instincts and it serves many social and individual benefits. And subjective things are not in the real of faith, faith is in the realm of subjective things.
http://www.google.com/search?hs=mE1&hl=en&lr=&cli
-The imaginative projection into another's feelings, a state of total identification with another's situation, condition, and thoughts. The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without explicitly articulating these feelings.
Don't confuse the political process with the scientific method.
:-)
True, the two are separate. That doesn't mean that some people don't raise the status of the scientific method to an ideology though.
The scientific method is a standard set of steps that analyze and explain. This group is not using analytical tools (well, I guess telephone polls are analytical) and they SURE aren't following the seven (or was that six?) sequential steps of the scientific method when they run a pro-evolution advertisement in Kansas.
True enough. Have they? I failed to notice that on their website. I suppose they could- but in so doing, they're no different than a Southern Baptist takeing out billboards with John 3:16 on them- or should that be John 16:3?
Instead, they intend to use the political process, including political fundraising and advertising, to change the world.
Yes, but their method of changing the world is to enshrine the scientific method as a litmus test, a scripture if you will- non believers need not apply.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Yes, but human beings aren't neccessarily wolves- and "reason enough" is not objective, which is "reason alone".
No, we're tribal just like wolves.
And the fact sociopaths exist proves that empathy is SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE. Subjective things are in the realm of FAITH, not REASON.
You don't make a damn bit of sense. Empathy is the ability to acknowledge that another person is real. This can certainly be measured objectively. Even if there's a subjective element, what the hell has it got to do with faith?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
"Truth be told, sir, evolution theory requires faith to be believed"
If evolution requires faith to be believed, than so does everything else in the world.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Their actions will determine if they are just "politically motivated."
Science will always be a political force not because science itself is political-- its not-- but because humans are political. Humans have trouble handling the truths that science seeks to reveal and within the field of science, which is done by 2+ humans, there will be politics in trying to get a consensus on the best answers.
Remember, most of science is NOT black and white-- its simply the best answers at the time.
The administration attacks anything that conflicts with their agenda. This includes science, logic, experts, observers, and reality. They know people live in a relative reality and many are not concerned with finding the truth, especially when distracted. Given some statements, I'd say many of them do not value the search for a universal reality; therefore, they have a fundimental disconnect from many of us.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Since intelligent design is an ideology, then opposition to ID is also an ideology
No.
One group can't distort life-sciences as an ideology simply by rah-rah-rah-ing loudly about their ideological objections to it's findings.
Emotionally, it might seem like it, but rationally, no: Putting an ideology next to science doesn't corrupt science by association.
You can't take the sky from me...
All should read Bjorn Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist! http://www.lomborg.com/ These guys fall victim to politics just the same as anyone. The Journal Nature all but put out a hit piece on this guy -- why? Because what he had to say (and back up with data) was contrary to their politics
You breath far more carcniogens from factory and automobile pollution than you do from cigarette smoke. But do you tell people not to idle their car near you? What is the difference? Smoking and idling your car are both legal.
The difference is moral. Your moral obsession with a negligible contributor (compared to everything else) smacks of both ignorance and a non-rational, emotional response. Go sing it to your church choir; they're much more likely to swallow your half-truths.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Basically, there is no such thing as reason in your book, since nothing can be known for sure to truly objective standards.
Almost. To me, reason only needs a standard of evidence. Objective standards is one possible standard of evidence; theology has different standards; both are reasonable. What is non-reason are the illogical religions, such as Islamic Fundamentalists who explain away bombing civilians (which is completely forbidden in their scripture) because "Allah Changed his mind". The best science, the best religion, is a mixture of faith and reason- always. Faith alone, Reason alone, does not work.
Maybe I don't get it after all then.
You are close. I may not be a believer in objective evidence (or any other system of limited evidence) but I can recognize it as being VALID within it's own bias. The important thing to remember is that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. (Given a 12 hour clock). EVERYTHING has a bias and an ideology- you can either run from that, and become a total skeptic not even beliving in yourself, or you can use it as a launching pad towards reasonable debate and dialogue. I choose to do the later.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Real christians that actually think about their beliefs instead of taking other people's word are not a problem.
But the problem is that these "real christians" you refer to don't exist. Every time a non-Christian points out something that a Christian or group of Christians do that seems to go against Christ's teachings, the standard answer from other self-claimed Christians is that "they're not real Christians". Sorry, that just doesn't fly. By that logic, the only "real Christian" is Christ himself.
It's the same thing with Muslims. Every time someone complains about Muslims being violent, some apologist says "they're not real Muslims", even though there's millions of them demonstrating in the streets, calling for the beheading of people who insult their religion.
Religions need to start acting responsibly and taking responsibility for the actions of their believers, instead of making lame excuses about them not being "real" believers.
"Republican politicians don't care about the economy. That's a ruse to cover their passing on more wealth to the wealthy through tax breaks"
Here's one amazing fact: The total amount of money that the government has given to the wealthy through tax breaks is a whopping huge $0.
"If giving tax breaks to the wealthiest isn't class warfare, I don't know what is."
It isn't. Perhaps the "class warfare" here is that you deceptively failed to point out that the tax breaks applied to ALL taxpayers (not just the rich).
"...because they can't justify giant tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the lower classes any other way..."
You are referring to something that didn't happen and no-one tried. There was no "expense" for the lower classes, since the tax rates went down across the board.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I'm just pointing out that the evolutionary model is based on observation of phenomena which have occured, and all evidence that keeps rolling in fits the model. It's rather solid, like thinking the sun will rise in the east in the morning. Yes, there is some FAITH involved in thinking that it will rise tomorrow in the east, but that is not much.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Public smoking bans have more to do with keeping cancer-causing poisons out of your body than putting morals in.
No, more correctly:
Public smoking bans have more to do with keeping cancer-causing poisons out of *other peoples' bodies* than putting morals in.
And how is that not a scientifically founded position? And WTF is this about fiscal responsibility and the Democrats compared to Republicans... Stop making me fucking laugh guy(the OP, not the parent).
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The difference is indeed moral. In terms of morals, you are the one who likes to force your choice on others. I don't like to smoke (and am in fact allergic to it). You do. You in fact love it so much that you think it is a great idea to force others to smoke as well, even though this is in fact a form of physical assault. In your morality, it is OK to assault others. But not in mine. Scuse me, here come some little metal darts. Those scratches on your arm are harmless, not a form of assault at all, are they? Why not take up chewing tobacco? Never met a chewer who liked to force others to chew.
Where were you when the voynix came?
So it's only bad to put carcinogens that are addictive into your body.
...want to smoke.
So, people willingly inhale concentrated barbeque smoke now? Funny, I,ve never seen people hooking up a pipe to a barbeque and huffing from it.
And people at camp fires make it a point to upt themselves downwind of the smoke in order to breathe in as much of it as possible? Weird, all the campfires I,ve been to, it was the exact opposite.
Face it, campfires and barbeques are NOT comparable to cigarettes.
The fact that you hang on to your invalid comparison after it was demonstrated to be null proves you are dishonest about this, mr. troll.
Don't like my smoke in a public place? Leave.
Don't like my mace in your face? Leave.
What could possibly make you think that you have the right to, literally, smoke people out of public places? Your petty desires trump other people's right? That's a nifty definition of narcissism.
There are plenty of private places you can go to if you
you can't face the fucking reality of being in public. Crybaby.
Who's the crybaby? The one who can't face the reality of smoking bans? Yeah, sounds about right.
You can't take the sky from me...
"Don't like my mace in your face? Leave."
Shhhh. He thinks he has every right to force you to fill your lungs with deadly toxins, but you can't DARE to make any apt analogy with other situations of a person's careless/rude actions causing direct physical harm to innocent and unwilling (and unasked) strangers standing nearby.
You'd think that if they guy wasn't a total jerk, he'd at least as permission of everyone nearby before he did this. I guess the concept of "manners" is too much for him.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Obviously, you and I are on two different worlds on this matter.
I consider science to be the study and explanation of the surrounding world. I don't believe science includes a religious component. In fact, I consider religion to simply be the result of man's imagination as he tries to explain the unexplainable. I consider science to be a serious attempt to address the same issues. Religion is based on faith. Science is based on fact. I don't necessarily believe that science can explain everything, nor do I believe that the scientific method is set in stone. IMHO, The method could be changed, if other steps prove to be more effective in finding the answers to why the universe is the way it is.
From what you have written, you appear to believe that science includes a significant religious aspect. And, it appears you consider 'science' to be a religion just like Catholocism or Buddhism.
There is no way either of us will change each other's mind.
If only it were true that they really were concerned about increasing scientific integrity in public life. No doubt, as soon as the subject of AIDS comes up, politics will trump science. As soon as the subject of cannabis comes up, politics will trump science. The mention of creationism leads me to think that this will be a Johnny-one-note organization.
There are two primary shooting wars going on. One is a game of terrorist whack-a-mole that is a sad necessity. The other is a war we started. We went in under false pretences, overthrew a government that while bad was NEVER a real threat to us personally, and now must clean up the mess left behind. The Republicans like to tie this war to the War on Terror but they are in fact completely seperate. Iraq had a habit of killing off its dissidants. All of the dangerous terrorists were coming from places like Saudi Arabia and Syria. Now Iraq is a haven for them. They flow in from over the borders in the contries we actually should be attacking and our troops are sitting targets, to busy playing "build a new government" to go out terrorist hunting. With a giant power vaccum extremist Mullahs rise to power without a fight and spew their hate without retribution.
Instead of sitting down with top Democrats and figuring out a way to stop the division both sides lob more vitrol at each other until we are so divided the terrorists sit back and laugh saying, "Praise Allah, mission accomplished. And Achmed didn't even need to send that other bomb..." Both parties need to be done away with entirely so idiots at the ballot box will be forced to actually figure out who they are voting for instead of going straight ticket.
Of course I have also had the insane idea that there should be an IQ test on every voter registration form. Miss the minimum and your ballot goes in the shredder instead of the box."
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
All epistemologies are not equal. Some assumptions are better grounded than others. The type of assumptions labeled "religious faith" are not epistemologically equivalent to the type of assumptions labelled "axioms of scientific methodology".
Thus showing an ideology- and an exclusive one at that. Thank you for proving my point that this 527 is discriminatory and political, and filled to the brim with ideology.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Show me the public place that you go to every day, where you are blown smoke in the face of every day, for 40 years... And I'll say that's the only place where you'd have an inkling of an argument. But it would still be invalid, because if such a place existed (I'm sure there are a few), then the fact of the matter is that the majority of people in that place WANT IT TO BE A SMOKING PLACE. The only public place where you could receive any significant harm would in fact be one where you share the minority belief of not wanting to smoke AND try to force it on all the people around [smokers] you.
Lung cancer is survivable -- even more than 50% of *active smokers* who get it survive. We are not killing you. No single smoker is killing you, and the aggregate of all smokers is not killing you. If you are so scared of a one in a million chance of getting cancer; if you want fresh air SO BAD you are willing to legislate away what has been perfectly acceptible human behavior for millina; you're far better off moving to the country, then trying to force your choice of not smoking onto others who really don't give a fuck.
It's my body and I'll do what I want. You can do what you want with your body too: Leave. And no, using mace is not a valid analogy at all. It's laughably bad. If I was actually physically harming you in a way where the harm could be measured that instant, then mace would be an acceptible response.
You get more cancer from what you eat and what you breathe; lung cancer has been a cuase of death for a long time, and people who don't smoke in the slighest get lung cancer ALL THE TIME. Every day.
You want to talk about waitresses working in a smokey bar for 40 years? That's a different story. Me sitting on a park bench and smoking a cig, with you nearby on another bench, and being annoyed by it, is in no way, shape, or form, at all the same degree as that. YOU WONT GET CANCER FROM ME.
And what you moralists don't realize is degrees. You have no concept of the word "negligible". Everything is a 0 or 1 with you, like a robot.
Did you know the government has an accepted level of arsenic in the water? But what about your right to not drink arsenic? Well guess what -- poisons in low amounts don't kill you every time, or even most of the time. There are acceptible levels.
If your threshold for acceptance is lower than the prevailing humans around you, then burden is squarely on YOU to go leave and go somewhere that meets your criterion. I shouldn't have to hide, or smoke in 30 degree weather, simply because you think that I, personally, Clint L, will give You, personally, cancer, by smoking this 1 cigarette that annoys you. That's a fucking load of bullshit. If you're so concerned, 10 paces in the oppositte direction should literally save your life. But no, *I'm* supposed to go somewhere else because *you're* paranoid and don't understand degrees of difference.
Meanwhile, your neighbors with SUVs will do far more to actually give you cancer, and the corporations that feed & clothe you will do far more to pollute the air than all smokers combined. You will continue to pay for these corporations to pollute the environment, but you will get a warm fuzzy feeling that somehow you've "made a difference" by harassing people that aren't the true source of the problem. (Hint: Marijuana prohibition is bad.)
Now into "joke mode":
one more thing -- A single large volcanic eruption can pollute the atmosphere more than mankind has in its entire history. So you better make sure volcanos can only erupt in private places. We wouldn't want them "forcing their choices" on you.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
"evolution theory is extrapolated from one observation: the variation of species"
i dence
Um no, start here...
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html
and try here...
http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_3.htm
better yet, allow me to assist...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=evolution+ev
That "one observation" is huge. It includes the variation of species and the distinct sequential progression/change on a lengthy time from one species to another (noted in a wide variety of species. I guess it is all "one observation", then the new information that confirms the timeline is part of that observation!
Where were you when the voynix came?
Hilarious! That was the funniest and most logical post I've read in a long time. Buzz, I'm a fan.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
It's not a role of the dice. One person's single cigarette is negligible. Nobody in history or any study has ever gotten cancer from secondhand smoke from a single cigarette. If you're that scared of carcinogens, stop eating fast food, stop contributing to corporations that pollute, move away from all active volcanoes, don't go out in the sun (sun gives you skin cancer far faster than walking through smoke will give you lung cancer), and leave the public to those of us "adventurous" enough to deal with reality.
But seriously, I did not put any effort into this response. My other response, I put a bit of effort in. Read that one. Don't read this one. (Too late? Muahha.)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Just pointing out the most likely outcome of this - hypocrisy.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Wrong, it is possible for humans to seperate themselves from bias and think objectively otherwise the world would still be flat and the center of the universe, but that is beside the point. If "objective ideology" is not objective due to bias then its not "objective ideology" is it. You can argue that objectiveness is an impossibility and there would be some fine debating points but proposing to define "objective ideology" as religious because of inherent falliablity in human character is idiocy and attempting do so only creats an oxymoron because of the definition of two words.
And yet, you've shown yourself to be incapable of separating yourself from your biases in this very statement. Why should I believe any human to be capable of separating themselves from bias when every time the subject comes up, the supposedly unbiased suddenly become *very* biased? It's as good as Islam killing nuns to prove themselves to be the religion of peace; and instead of being oxymoronic, it's merely moronic.
WTF? What do job applications have to do with seperation of church and state?
Well, in the case of this 527, they want, in part, to make sure that only believers in their ideology hold certain posts in the federal government.
I absolutely agree with your statement but I don't see the relationship to the originial intent of speration between church and state in the United States government and the religious fervor trying to turn the USA and its schools into a religious state. There is freedom to practice religion in the United States but it is illegal to use the government of the United States to create a state religion to be forced upon all its citizens, try reading the works of Thomas Jefferson.
You might try reading those words yourself- expression isn't establishment. Establishment, as we can see by example in the middle east, is coming to your house at night with a weapon and telling you to convert or you will be executed. Both expression, and establishment, are supposed to be protected from being enshrined in law in the United States. This 527 seeks to establish science as a new religion.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
about the "average clod" certainly won't make matters any easier. Being that aggressive just puts them on the defensive, and they'll happily write you off as an "elitist prick" and ignore everything you have to say anyway. Fox News provides enough of that polarizing talk as it is, we don't need to make it worse.
People don't vote for it. The Democrat and Republican shares of the vote add up to approximately 99%. It's funny how people bitch about losing freedom, but when it's their turn to choose between freedom or authoritarianism, they go running to nanny's arms.
We deserve what we're getting. We chose it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Empathy is the ability to acknowledge that another person is real.
Now that's a different definition yet. How do you know the other person is real? I don't even know that I am real. At least, not measured objectively and without faith. "I think therefore I am" is a statement of faith, because there is no way to prove that I can think.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Experiments that they never actually repeat, presented to them by anonymous sources that they never actually question.
/. to find some instances of that.
Any evidence to back up your claim?
I find no philosophy horrific; save one: intolerance in the name of tolerance.
Science isn't a philosophy.
Who, recently, has bothered to challenge peer review?
You need only to search
The theories are the outcome of the traditions, not the traditions themselves.
Traditions which are firmly rooted in logic you mean? Are you questioning the scientific method? If so, I again advise you to read David Hume.
Yet we never actually test the traditions themselves- peer review for instance, but there are others. The theories are the work of the system, not the system itself.
Peer review happens. I guess you haven't read slashdot in the past few years.
Did we? Reliably? Seems to me we had more failure than success in that area- which is the reason mankind has not set foot on the moon in 20 years.
Seems to me that we did. The US has had several successful landings, as have other countries. I can't speak for other countries, but the reason the US hasn't gone back is because NASA is publicly funded, and people don't seem to care anymore about space exploration.
None of these are perfect, they all just barely work. However, the problem isn't with the successes or failures- but with the blind faith in the system itself.
Huh? Barely work? Doesn't nuclear power create electricity? Doesn't your microwave oven heat food each and every time you put it in there? I don't see people getting God to heat their food, do you?
Yes, but that's not the point. In fact, it's as much beside the point as bringing in Newton vs Einstien- that's the outcome of the system of Reasonable Theology, not the system itself.
Stay right there, the men in white jump suits should be there shortly. Science (which, by definition is not unprovable 'theory') has been able to tell us much about the world in which we live. Do we know everything? Of course not. But we are learning more everyday. Do you see the problem here with you calling science a religion? Science actually has outcomes that we can see and that anyone can reproduce or use. Unless you have another way to explain how a microwave works and can actually prove that your theory on how it works is correct.
Yes, that's the meaning of peer review- but why trust the reviewer, whom you don't know, over the peer committee, who you don't know? Or for that matter, why trust the peer committee, who you don't know, over the reviewer, who you don't know? Ultimately, it's all taken on Faith.
Um, perhaps because there's more than one peer? Perhaps because bad experiments can't be built upon? The distiction between religon and science is that if I really don't believe something, I can try the experiment myself.
Once again, that's the system working as designed, not questioning the system itself.
Again, if you doubt logic, I don't really know what to tell you. I personally have never seen anything just fly in the air without any other force acting on it, but if you want to think that can happen, feel free.
I have- I think he's as biased as any other human.
I think you miss the point he was making; yes, you can doubt everything, but that's not very useful, is it? If you want to doubt everything, please go ahead, and lock yourself in a room and try to figure out what is really real. Meanwhile the rest of us will go on to learn more about the system in which we live.
The DMCA is the government saying it is immoral to
BZZZZZZT! Wrong!
Get your head on straight: The DMCA is about money, greed, control.
You can't take the sky from me...
Then you haven't been paying attention. To be fair it's a bit obscure and isn't a direct goal.
The reason there are so few diesel cars in North America is that it is difficult and expensive to make them meet the emissions requirements.
VW will suspend (likely temporarily) sales of their diesel cars because of these requirements.
>
No, "I think therefore I am" is a rationalization.
"So, after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind" - Rene Descartes
It is an intellectual excercise to find some basis from which to rationalize everything else. Descartes was make a rational conclusion, not a leap of faith.
"Defeat Democrats and UBL will give up since his only hope for victory lies in destroying our will to fight."
You actually believe this? I would say your blind hatred of Democrats is overwhelming all other considerations. So, when would you like the "War on Democrats" to start?
"I'm NOT saying all Democrats are knowingly in league with UBL."
By even mentioning this, though, you are implying that some Democrats are in league with UBL.
I haven't read such a diatribe of hate and blame since I last read an Ann Coulter column.
Both parties really, really need to get away from that extreme wing thing, and back to realizing that it is the Corporatists in American politics that hold the real power.
there, fixed it for you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In that case, with the reasons you stated (small sample size, faulty data, etc), it would NOT be scientific data. Scientific data must be able to be replicated to a degree of statistical certainty. If you are working with small sample size then it may not be statistically significant, and unless your study is done again over either a larger sample population or a larger number of different small samples, then the results will not be scientific.
Same with faulty data. If your data is faulty and cannot be replicated, then your conclusions are not scientific.
Now, I'm not saying it would be impossible to create studies that may lead to scientific conclusions such as those you posted, but 1.) good luck getting the funding for such controversial things, 2.) good luck actually conducting a scientific study of such things that leads to those conclusions*, and 3.) good luck keeping bias out of your study.
*Remember: science is not explanations looking for strong supporting data. It is data looking for strong explanations.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Lung cancer is survivable -- even more than 50% of *active smokers* who get it survive. We are not killing you.
Getting shot in the head is survivable too, jerk.
It's my body and I'll do what I want.
If your smoke reaches me, it's not your choice, it's mine.
You wanna poison yourself? Smoke in your house.
You can't take the sky from me...
Although the OTA had done some interesting work and was a professional, but small fact finding organization, in the end, it was pretty much just vicim of the fact that its congressional oversite board was a dumping ground for low ranking staffers that didn't have the clout with their bosses (the congress members assigned to the board) to fight for a budget.
Historically, the OTA was primarily a provider of alternative policy choices not doing much actual technology assessment since it was just a small shadow of the technology "big-guns" available to the executive branch. When the congress and the executive are in different parties, the OTA was often used by congress people as source of policy advice that could counter the policy advice advanced by the executive branch. However, when one party controls both congress and the executive, it's a duplicate waste of resources.
I'm not saying that certain politicos have no interest in knowledge and might of had an agenda, but more likely the truth of the matter is that the dems didn't care enough to defend it because they get most of their techno-policy advice from alternate sources anyhow. In a normal chain of events common in modern budgetting, since it was small, it got squashed in the budget process (which tends to preserve large programs and agencies that have large constituents, but just eliminate small programs).
I think it's just intellectually lazy to attribute this to malice or agenda, since it was most likely just something that got crushed in the normal budgetting process that favors large constituent backing over beneficial programs.
> There are two primary shooting wars going on.
Nope, only one.
> One is a game of terrorist whack-a-mole that is a sad necessity.
If we contented ourselves with playing whack-a-mole (another way of phrasing it would be treating terrorism as a law enforcement problem btw) we will never prevail. We have to end state sponsorship or terrorism AND we must remove the circumstances that breed terrorists.
> The other is a war we started. We went in under false pretences, overthrew a government that while bad was
> NEVER a real threat to us personally, and now must clean up the mess left behind.
No, Iraq IS the War on Terror. Afganistan was something that had to be cleaned up, but alone would not have ended the terrorists. It would have simply driven them elsewhere.... namely into Iran, Iraq, Syria and Somalia. Iraq would have slipped the sanctions by now (they had bribed almost everyone at the UN in charge of enforcing them, to the point they were largely meaningless at the time of the Iraq War) and been back in the business of being general villans.
But more importantly, Iraq was the perfect place to attempt to install a modern Republican form of government in the heart of the Middle East (otherwise known as the fever swamps breeding terrorism) to provide an example to the suffering masses living in tyranny. Iraq is the wedge that, if successful, bring down the House of Saud, the corrupt despot on the Egyptian throne, etc.
> Of course I have also had the insane idea that there should be an IQ test on every voter registration form.
> Miss the minimum and your ballot goes in the shredder instead of the box."
I'd love that idea. Most ignorant/stupid people vote Democratic. Accuse me of flamebaiting all ya want folks, it is the nasty little open secret nobody wants to talk about. When Democrats/Progressives/etc rail about stupid people voting the wrong way it is simply misdirection. They DEPEND on the stupid, the uneducated (i.e. increasingly anyone who goes to government schools) and the politically naive. And most importantly they absolutely depend on keeping as many voters as possible in total ignorance of economics.
And while I'm bound for -1 flamebait I'll toss another live grenade. Democrats depend on voters making decisions emotionally instead of rationally. Which explains why Democrats/Progressives did noticably better after Women's Sufferage. Anyone who doesn't believe me is invited to examine the historical record. No Democratic since that event would have won office had only men been voting. Of course modern women are finally reaching educational parity with men, and having had to deal with the real world most of their lives now, so sure enough the gender gap is slowly disappearing.
So now the bug push is to make up those losses and get illegal aliens voting, on the assumption they are mostly poor, uneducated and thus ripe for the Democratic party.
Democrat delenda est
Not if by killing those 4000 we gain them 5000 new recruits. Which according to the President's own intelligence analysis is exactly what's happening.
Your hornet's nest analogy assumes that there is some fixed pool of terrorists out there, and our job is to hunt them down until they are all dead, after which we'll be done and there will be no more terrorists. Trouble is, terrorism is not a cause or a movement or a group that can be stamped out. It is a tactic employed in the service of a cause. As long as there are causes people are willing to die for, people will die for their causes.
Can you point to one case at any time in world history where eliminating insurgents has worked in the end? Where hunting down and killing fervent believers in a cause, people who were willing to die for their beliefs, has ultimately killed a movement, and the hunters have been able to wash their hands and declare victory?
What the "kill 'em all!" crowd doesn't get is that just about anyone can become a terrorist if they're given a good enough reason. We are over there giving a lot of people exactly that reason -- people who would not otherwise have become terrorists. We are worsening the very problem we're allegedly trying to solve, and the government's own experts on the matter have now said so in writing. I realize there are a lot of talk show hosts and bloggers who are quite certain they know more about strategic analysis than the combined staffs of the 16 intelligence agencies that contributed to the report, but I know who I'm more inclined to believe.
Suppose China suddenly invaded the US. If they started rounding up freedom fighters and shooting them in the head, would you shrug and say, "Good show guys, you win, what would you like from me?" I'm guessing not. I'm guessing for every one of your countrymen you saw turned into a "traitors eliminated!" statistic on the official state-run TV, you'd get angrier and angrier until you decided you'd had enough, those bastards were going to pay for destroying your way of life. Well, guess what, from the point of view of Al Qaeda's new recruits, that's exactly what we're doing.
I laugh at your diminished lung capacity (not really; I just said that to annoy you). It sounds to me like you have a personal problem and a predictable emotional response based on your personal experiences. Hint: Lung cancer existed before smoking tobacco, not everyone is you, your mileage may vary, and your lack of objectivism says to me that you would make a very poor judge.
If smokers actually caused it, then you should have followed my original advice and WALKED AWAY. If you lack the common sense to realize "I have pussy lungs and should avoid things normal people can handle", well -- your inferior genetic code will hopefully remove you from the gene pool, which would be fitting justice as far as I am concerned.
Ironically.... I don't actually buy cigarettes. I smoke them if they are offered. And I would vote to criminalize cigarettes, if given the opportunity. But only because I want to group tobacco smokers in the same group as marijuana smokers, in an attempt to strengthen smokers' rights grassroots politics. :)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
So , if you want to skip all the health threat stuff, and make a nyah nyah argument, by all means do so (you did). But it really doesn't mean squat. You could just as easily be someone from the confederate states (assume: internet in 1860) arguing that slavery is good, because "there are more pro-slavers than you. So take a hike, nigger."
Yes. Very logically sound.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Again, if you doubt logic, I don't really know what to tell you. I personally have never seen anything just fly in the air without any other force acting on it, but if you want to think that can happen, feel free.
Oddly enough, you've got me pegged wrong. I don't "doubt logic", I doubt the bias-free application of that logic- as well as the idea that any one logical system is so perfect as to be exclusionary.
I think you miss the point he was making; yes, you can doubt everything, but that's not very useful, is it? If you want to doubt everything, please go ahead, and lock yourself in a room and try to figure out what is really real. Meanwhile the rest of us will go on to learn more about the system in which we live.
We live in more than one system- unless you're willing to learn about them all, you'll end up nothing other than just another bigot.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Science is just another religion- because both are serious attempts to understand the world around us. Until you understand that religion is just as serious as science- you're right, we won't have any common ground.
Religion is equally based on "fact" as science is- because humans are incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction. I'm relatively sure an objective reality exists someplace- but I'm not at all sure that I have the capability of knowing what that objective reality looks like, and I've seen enough failues of science to know that nobody else has any better clue either. So why pretend that we know when we don't?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Let me burn my karma (non-existent as it is) in order to make a blatant sales pitch. Buy one of our sexy, science-supporting magnets http://www.supportourscientists.com/ for your car (or anywhere) and help get the message out that there are, in fact, people in the United States who do support science and those who dedicate their lives to it. And, because people always ask, right now the money goes just to keep the whole endeavor alive (envelopes, packaging, postage, etc.). We're not getting rich or anything.
"Trust in haste. Repent at leisure"
Okay, perhaps science _is_ science, that's a tautology (and not a very good one at that).
I would argue that nearly all the debates about science in politics aren't really about science at all, but policy. Not too many people debate science in its true form (i.e., hypothesis, experiment, theory), but today most of the debate is about the hypothesis. In these case, there isn't an experiment yet, and there is a debate on which of several hypotheses are valid and _if_ we should do something before it's tested (long before there is a theory). Remember there needs to be a way to _disprove_ a hypothesis, but most policy wonks aren't interested in that aspect of science.
Some quick examples.
Global warming: I don't think we have another earth to test this hypothisis on.
Stem cells: People are only speculating if this will pan out, but the have a hypothesis want to try and test it (and get money to help them try).
Evolution/Creationism: I haven't heard of a valid "experiment" to test this either way.
I think people are really caught up in trying to frame this as a science "us vs them", but in reality, this is a policy debate about which hypotheses are worth persuing expermiments on, that really has nothing to do about science (other than scientists want money to do their experiment to go to a theory stage).
For example, the fact that the earth is getting warmer is a observation/measurement. What should we do about it. Well lots of people have some hypothesis about it (like humans are causing it), but it's still a _policy_ decision to decide how to proceed. The so-called science advanced to address this is all still in the hypothesis stage (since there are no large scale expermiments, but historical data and models). What the stage we are at now is the "experimental" validation phase of science, not the theory stage (which comes _after_ the experimental stage).
Perhaps the reality is that can't afford not to do some experments (like reduce carbon output), but that's not a _scientific_ issue, that's a policy decision to experiment with one of several hypotheses. It's important to examine this outside of science, because in reality, _science_ really doesn't have much to offer in the policy area except the reputation and experience of scientists to guide a reasonable course of action. Of course that's all we can expect of politicians to use their reputation and experience to guide a reasonable course of action. In this respect the scientists are just performing the job of politicians with PhDs. You may choose to respect this more or less, we live in a democracy, not a timocracy or a plutocracy.
I've found that scientist are often too quick to apply their "religion" outside of the scope of their proven applicability. Sometime those scientific tools work outside their domain, but sometimes they do not. One is always reminded of the "cargo-cult" described so well in a book by Richard Feynman. Just because you go through the similar motions doesn't mean it's science.
Most Republicans are living in the real world, where there is a shooting war on. Most Democrats are living in a fantasy world where they are more likely to believe Bushitler blew up the WTC than to believe UBL not only did it, but that it wasn't his first successful attack. The only Democrats on the national stage who show they at least understand are Lieberman (forced from his party for his belief) and perhaps HRC, who probably understands we have a war on but is politically savvy enough to fuzz her position enough to remain viable in her insane party. Making her morally bankrupt and unfit for office regardless of which side you look at the issue from.
I'd revise that and say most americans are living ina fantasy world. There are sane Democrates and Republicans but the ones who choose the winner are stupid lower middle class slobs who routinely vote against their own interest because they arent' smart enough to realize what their interests are. Intelligent Democrates and Republicans are aware their side has problems but to the rest of the world, the republicans in power now seem insane warmongers. The democrate government were seemingly reasonable.
Also, your ideas about what is important to the united states seem unifnormed. The US could have stayed out of Iraq and still be just as secure as they are now (some argue even more secure). They are making a play to control the oil to hedge the growth of the chinese/european/russian economies. It happens that their play for it didn't go so well. It has nothing to do with security since most of the terrorism is inspired more from their pseudo occupation of saudi arabia. Most republicans live in fantasy world as well where they truly beleive that terrorism is a legitimate threat and not a fringe phenomenon that has not killed that many people (5,000 americans isn't a lot). Terrorism will not destroy the united states. Terrorism is about as threatening as lime disease and deserves no more press but gets more because it's the cause celebre of the modern age.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
> Elect scientists and engineers!
Or lets not. I wouldn't hire an MD to design a building. I wouldn't hire a physist to give me a physical. I wouldn't hire a politician (even one I liked) to operate a particle accelerator. And I suspect nobody here finds any of these statements controversial. So why would we want to elect a scientist? If said scientist has been politically active and has positions on most of the issues of the day that I approve of then yes, I'll take a chance on letting him switch career tracks. Otherwise, nope.
The days of citizen legislators and the old Republic they served are long dead. Now we live in a semi socialist nanny state where the Feral Government runs every aspect of our daily lives. It isn't a job for amateurs anymore.
I wish it could be again, but wishing won't make it so. Doing that will require a long sustained effort to raise a new generation of Citizens willing to accept responsibility for their own affairs.
Democrat delenda est
Oh, boy. You've set yourself up for the thrashing of a lifetime. You're going to be called racist, sexist, speciesist, planetist, dimensionist, and any other kind of -ist they can think of.
Of course, no one will be able to dispute most of your points. I would say that there is no lack of the Republicans deliberately campaigning in a way to attract ignorant voters as well, but it will never beat out the Democrats' long-term policy of campaigning (and legislating) based on bald-faced bribery of constituents and class envy.
The last laugh would be if the Democrats got their way and the immigrants were rioting in the streets because the economy was screwed because there was no incentive to invest or create, and of course everything was going to entitlements anyway. Of course, then we all lose.
Either way, though our country has been sold out from under us. Both parties want to turn it over to the illegals, albeit for different reasons, but regardless, some day China is going to call in their chit and then we will be the new Taiwan. They can buy and sell our ass. Oh, and then the expontentially-expanding entitlement programs will get to the sharp point of the curve. Neither party is willing to take a stand on any of these issues, and one day, they will make the War on Terrorism look like the Good Old Days.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
All too true. But they are fighting. During the opening acts of WWII and the Cold War (WWIII) we didn't exactly cover ourselves in glory either. But we knew that defeat wasn't an option and kept going and eventually won. I'm still holding out hope the Republicans will keep swinging long enough to learn how to fight this new sort of war.
You had clear objectives in WWII and the cold war was a ideological contest which didn't really matter either way to most americans but was important for purely ideological reasons. Camobodia/vietnam beign communist or not would nto have affected the US much. But to allow the USSR too many "political" victories hurt the prestige and influence of the US.
Winning requires internalizing the fundamental truth of modern warfare. Battles are won and lost on the battlefield, but the war is won on the floor of the Congress and on TV. Defeat Democrats and UBL will give up since his only hope for victory lies in destroying our will to fight. Democrats lend him moral support when they lead him to believe that one election tipping their way will give him victory in Iraq. I'm NOT saying all Democrats are knowingly in league with UBL. What I am saying is that UBL doesn't care because the result, for him, is the same regardless. And I'm sad to say no small portion of Democrats don't care if they give UBL a victory, their blind hatred of Bush and their insatable lust to regain lost political power is overwhelming all other considerations.
The fundemental truths of modern warfare are exactly the same as the fundemental truths of ancient warfare. Assymetric warfare does depend on causing yoru massively powerful opponent to stop. But it also require your massively powerful opponent to occupy your terrortory and to make stupid tactical and strategic blunders allowing you to snipe at them. The most obvious bluder is you have politicians directing your military. Thats a huge idotic mistake that a general 1800 years ago warned against. The politicos needs to point and say "I want them" and the generals should rule the soliders from there. Your soldiers have been given vague and unachievable objectives and the only winning condition your gov set for yourselves is virtually impossible (bring democracy to a ethnically divided, violence soaked collection of peoples who hate you). And then you under fund and understaff them as well. This little foray has cost the US both prestige, moral high ground, money, lives, and influence. No matter what the outcome now it will be a failure. Cut and running just minimizes your cost in lives and cash. There is little else to be gained fromt his fiasco at this point.
Don't have to check, I was watching. Yes most Democrats voted to destroy the Taliban. As most of them voted to invade Iraq, and for the same reason. Voting otherwise would have been suicide for most of them. But from their public statements then and now it was clear that had they believed they could have been survived they would have voted against both.
Afganistan was a "if you touch us we'll destory you" message. Iraq was a "while we're here we minus as well finish this too." message. dont' equate the two. they have very little in common.
Afganistan would be a quagmire. Afganistan had resisted conquest by every major power since history began, we would suffer the fate of the British and the Russians. Afganistan was just a little pissant country Bushitler wanted to beat up to prove his manhood. You name it and some Democrat was saying it.... then.
Afganistan had other backers against the brits and russians. We stormed in, killed a few peopel and then handed power over to nearly the same people you came to kill.. It was a PR victory but you did very little. you won quickly because the afgani's didn't have a major power backign them this time (unliek the russians vs afganistan or US vs vietnam). And their other backers (iran) didn't want to touch it.
Where were you? War in Iraq was justified on any one of several equally valid ca
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
> There are two primary shooting wars going on.
Nope, only one.
you dont' read much history do you. Lets see, you were attacked by Osama bin laden an ex CIA-associated Saudi by a group of mostly saudis with a paper trail of money linking more saudis who had a deep ideological hate for saddam hussan and who actively tried to kill each other... Logically it must then be Iraq that is reposnible? seem logical to me....
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
But funny how all the anti-smokers who chime in all have emotional reasons for their responses. Personal allergy. Personal diminished lung capacity. And now: Feeling that it represents a personality flaw, therefore should be banned so you can feel good about helping people. (Meanwhile, lung cancer deaths still happen due to pollution and, GASP, natural reasons like radon.)
The point is -- an individual smoker is only "polluting" the air in his immediate surrounding. If you don't want to go to a smokey bar, then don't. No one is forcing you to come. If you want a smoke-free bar, open one up yourself (or live in Washington--hah). If I'm in the middle of a park, you have plenty of room to go elsewhere. You are not surrounded by smokers on all sides, unable to escape, with tubes taped to your mouth, forcing you to smoke it. And you're not going to get cancer from a few incidental exposures. If you think you will, you need a serious reality check.
Of course, if you legislate my freedom away completely, I'm stuck in my home. Unless it's an apartment that bans smoking on tenants. Then, I can't practice my LEGAL act of smoking tobacco ANYWHERE. (Prohibition already failed, by the way.) But of course, it's much more impotant that smokers can't smoke ANYWHERE, than a 1% chacne that you might stand near somebody smoking for a few minutes.
You guys are so full of yourselves. Probably support the war on drugs too.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Tha majority of his repsonses are disputes about his points. I haven't seen anythign simply callign him names. Although I do not view below 1 so I may not see those.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Religion requires that you accept a bunch of stories from a book or storyteller to be true. You have to believe that ra drags the sun across the sky with a chariot every day. Science requires that you accept that humans can observe the world with our 5 senses and humans can communicate with each other. The true difference is the affect of the basic tenets being wrong. If the earth orbits around the sun instead of following ra's chariot, is simply means you don't have to sacrifice goats or whatever if you want your crops to grow.
Interesting pair of examples- to somebody like be, both are equally mythical, the difference is one is somebody else's myth. I don't mess with other people's myths- the Bali Rice Crop incident taught me that sometimes you DO have to sacrifice rats and goats to get your crops to grow. The best way to tell fact from fiction is the test of time, not the test of somebody's idea of what evidence is.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
> Lets see, you were attacked by Osama bin laden an ex CIA-associated Saudi by a group of mostly saudis with
> a paper trail of money linking more saudis who had a deep ideological hate for saddam hussan and who
> actively tried to kill each other... Logically it must then be Iraq that is reposnible? seem logical to me....
Classic case of missing the forest for the trees. I'll try one last time before moving to another article.
To win the GWOT we must drain the fever swamps in the Middle East that UBL feeds on for new idiots to strap a bomb onto. That means we need to transform the dysfunctional countries in the region into modern Republican forms of government with modern instituitions and economies. They won't be little clones of the US, Canada or Europe because they are Islamic peoples who will need to discover their own balance in much the same way our fledgling nations balanced their religious, philisophical and political beliefs.
Now once one accepts that this is the only longterm solution the obvious question is HOW? Well one way would be to invade and smash Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, etc. and rebuild them all as was done at the end of WWII. Downside is that after Clinton 'spent the peace dividend' we lacked the militaty force to even consider something so grand. A less expensive and probably better way would be to build a model and allow the people in the others to emulate a successful example of their own free will.
Ok, we only invade one country... Next question is obviously WHICH one? As fate would have it there was one country centrally situated that we happened to still be in a formal state of War with, was generally a nightmare waiting to happen again and was about to slip out of the UN sanctions that were part of the Cease Fire agreement that stopped Gulf War I. Basically Saddam needed killin in a bad way regardless. I think the choice was pretty easy. What part of that line of reasoning do you have a problem with?
Democrat delenda est
Cool! They'll be like the N.I.C.E. in C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength!
Oh, wait ...
This would be a good thing if they fought against all ideologies. But this, of course, won't be the case. Ideologues never acknowledge their unfounded beliefs are ideology. For them, only what "the others" (those who don't share their worldview) believe is ideology.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
>Intelligent design is an anti-scientific ideology.
No, actually it isn't. It's an area of exploration - the possibility that evidence of intelligent design in complex systems may be identifiable by analysis. Life is one (very) complex system.
For example, the concept behind SETI is quite similar - the idea that by analyzing electromagnetic radiation we can determine if a particular stream is from an intelligent source.
But, have fun. The authorities of pop culture say that ID is one of the approved mocking targets for now.
By jove, you are right! It IS just a Theory!
Which means -- it explains the observations . -- it can be independently verified. -- it will be discarded when it no longer fits the observations. -- it has predictive ability.
And that's just a theory.
Now lets examine "the theory of Evolution" vs. "Faith based".
1 - Evolution can predict what happens next. Can Faith?
2 - Evolution fits the observations. So does Faith. Actually, any faith based system can fit. We use the simplest Theory that explains the observations.
3 - Can Evolution is discarded? In a second, as soon as it no longer fits. Faith based? No way. Besides, Faith based will always fit the observations. After all, it's what the gods intended.
Sure, have faith. As soon as faith works in a scientific context, including predictions, scientists will simply call it a theory.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Can you point to one case at any time in world history where eliminating insurgents has worked in the end? Where hunting down and killing fervent believers in a cause, people who were willing to die for their beliefs, has ultimately killed a movement, and the hunters have been able to wash their hands and declare victory?
World War II
The Allies deliberately and indiscriminately killed both solidiers and civilians until both the Germans and the Japanese were forced to surrender. Through gruesome attacks on major cities (Dresden, Hiroshima) we forced a surrender and haven't been attacked by either country since.
It was a different place and time and I do not believe these tactics would work for any of our current conflicts, but I do believe it's fair to say the "Kill 'em all and let god sort em out." approach has worked at least once in history.
We showed that we were willing to turn entire countries into barren wastelands and it worked.
In Dresden alone we killed over 20,000 people, the majority of them civilians.
In Hiroshima we killed 66,000 and injured 69.000.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating this approach at all. I think it would be stupid, but I do believe in being honest about what has really happened in the past. (Lest we are doomed to repeat it.)
Another example would be America's systematic extermination of the American Indian. Don't see any roving band of Indians shooting arrows at people do you?
Life is too short to proofread.
You could say the same thing about gravity. We only have evidence for gravity, not proof.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Look at your own definition: The imaginative projection into another's feelings, which makes empathy a myth, no different than any other myth. To somebody like me, who is autistic, it's even more of a myth- I know you don't know what I feel, so don't pretend that you do. Vicarious experience is really about what you feel, not what the other person is really feeling.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Sounds good- except for one problem- I can't prove that Descartes could think either. So it may be a rationalization, but it's one based on an assumption that can't be proven.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
My mistake -- while Nature did publish an article which criticizes Lomborg. Its was the editors of Scientific American that did the hit piece -- more here: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID =965718
Just because 90% of the people want gravity to vanish won't make it go away. Science is a matter of facts. It is or it is not. There is no vote to be held, no consensus to find. Sure, people might have divergent ideas or theories, but it's not the idea that gets the most support that becomes truth. It's the other way around, truth eventually gets the most support in the scientific community. Scientists usually don't close their eyes to proof that is so overwhelming that they eventually have to admit their theory was wrong. It is usually the lesser evil compared to clinging to a model that simply doesn't hold a drop of water. You're the laughing stock of the scientific community for ages to come if you do.
Granted, for a while you can stall progress with dogma. But not forever.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Policy issues are another matter. Fights about issues should take place on the policy battlefield. For example, if someone notices that Asian-identified students average higher IQs than Caucasians, suppressing the research is wrong but it's right to fight against separate water fountains for the inferiors.
>And then they put out books like the Bell Curve.
Hernstein and Murray explicitly disregarded facts, for example claiming (without citing evidence) that there's no racial bias in the administration of IQ tests. The authors had to acknowledge that not all studies of racial IQ differences got the same result. They had to acknowledge that differences ranged from zero to two standard deviations, with tests in the South showing the big differences and tests in the North showing little or none. All the rest of us had to do was notice what the data were trying (unsuccessfully) to tell a pair of authors who weren't listening.
But a vote for a Democrat IS a vote for wolves eating me so I will hold my nose and go vote a straight Republican ticket in November.
Why are people like you such cowards? Maybe it's because you're so stupid as to think there is ANYTHING "rational" about fear. You have a far greater chance of being killed in a car crash than ever being involved in a terrorist attack but I don't see you claiming it's "rational" to stop the use of cars by invading Iraq, which incidentally has more to do with cars that it did with terrorism.
Grow a pair or get the fuck out of my country, bitch. Getting a clue wouldn't hurt either.
The Farewell Tour II
Hell, I support a US-Brunei Free Trade Agreement - as long as there's one job left in America, it should be offshored....
The Roman Empire might respond, "Carthage" but I'm not sure there was anyone left there to feel bad about it.....(Seriously though, a very intelligent post/response to a very nonsensical poster.)
He went up against the Sovs as a CIA asset....probably still is...
Arar comes to mind but I think he deserved it
Oh, did you miss the recent inquiry report where it was determined that the RCMP passed on erroneous or misleading information to the US, and where Ara was pretty well cleared of involvemnet with Al Qaeda? What exactly did he do to "deserve it"? An apparently innocent man was tortured for a year. Of course in the U.S. you might never have had an inquiry; the whole issue would have been swept under the carpet with Arar having no chance to examine the evidence against him, getting tried by a military tribunal, and the people who screwed up getting a promotion.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
It said the government should not support science education programs that 'include concepts that are derived from ideology,
So, does that mean that this group will SUPPORT politicians who are reasonably skeptical about Global Warming?
Or politicians that oppose giant programs of social engineering and redistribution of wealth, as the entire basis of welfare is an ideology that believes the government knows best who should be helped and by how much?
Oh wait, no, it's probably only CERTAIN ideologies that they oppose; that would make this 527 rather ironic, no?
-Styopa
And the problem for the other side is that the Republicans CAN say that and it resonates because most rational people understand there is more than just a little truth in the charge. I'm one of those voters who would love to vote against the 'spend tax money like drunken sailors' Republican party and the 'compasionate conservative liberal lite' Republican party personified by G. W. Bush. But a vote for a Democrat IS a vote for wolves eating me so I will hold my nose and go vote a straight Republican ticket in November.
There's a saying that "the definition of insanity is repeating an action and expecting to get a different result". The current Republicans are losing the war due to gross incompetance, are unwilling to change their approach (except for the worse if the latest "Right to Torture" bill is any indication), and there is every reason to believe that they will continue to do so if they maintain control in November. If you vote straight slate Republicans, then you are just as insane as they are.
You seem to forget that overspending on forlorn military adventures, and letting ideology rule over science (Chernobyl) were some of the things that led to the national identity crisis and loss of faith in the political system that brought down the Soviet Union. Republicans are destroying your country and OBL and Iraq, while a significant worry, are no longer your biggest ones. You need to clean house in the Republican party. It will happen after the Democrats start winning control of branches of the government, or in 10 years when you've run the country down the drain from spending blood and money in Iraq. Your choice.
Ah well, most empires are taken down by their own hubris. Why should the American empire be any different?
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
"Defeat Democrats and UBL will give up since his only hope for victory lies in destroying our will to fight."
You actually believe this? I would say your blind hatred of Democrats is overwhelming all other considerations. So, when would you like the "War on Democrats" to start?
"I'm NOT saying all Democrats are knowingly in league with UBL."
By even mentioning this, though, you are implying that some Democrats are in league with UBL.
Well, I hate to admit it, but many democrats hate Bush more than they hate BinLaden. Hell, for that matter, most Slashdotters hate Bush more than they hate BinLaden. Harry Belafonte, Shehan (who was a Democrats guest at the State of the Union speech), CodePink, MoveOn.org, Michael Moore (who had box seats at the Dem Convention), Martin Sheen and many many more all think that Bush is "The Biggest Terrorist on Earth". That means they think that Bush is more dangerous than the leaders of Iran, Cuba, Venesuela, N. Korea, Russia, Sadam Hussein and yes, even BinLaden. While I know these people are not elected, they are held in high regard among elected Democrats. How often do you see Tim Robins, Susan Surandon (sp?), Harry Belafonte, Cindy Sheehan, or Michael Moore as a guest of honor or sharing the stage with a Democrat currently serving in an elected office?
So, given what I mentioned above: While Democrats are not in league with UBL, they would rather be with him than GWB! Now that's fucked up!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Ah yes, that's why I'm able to walk over air, since I don't believe in gravity.. Quit while you're ahead, troll.
This will probably not be read by anyone, but I thought I'll respond in general.
I was trying to ask where people stand between absolute freedom of speech and strict political correctness. Most people fall between the two extremes. I fall heavily on the side of freedom of speech personally, but I understand a lot of people don't. There were cartoons that inflamed the Muslim world, the dissolution of the largest Belgian political party for being too anti-immigrant for the Belgian supreme court, the attempt to end evolution education in certain schools and the many hate speech laws throughout the world. A Slashdotter is probably more strongly in support of free speech than the average person, which explains the nature of the other comments.
It is less about what is science, rather what you call science. Science may produce a lot of the world's wonders and fascinate the public, but scientists themselves have very little media influence. A corporation, government or political group will find someone with an advanced degree willing to say what they want and put them on television. Most of the audience will believe what the expert is saying, while many scientists in that field may be throwing rotten vegetables at the screen. I bet there are a lot of climatologists who get really pissed off when they see Fox News on a nearby television. You are correct about the need for correct scientific standards, I'm just saying that there are well paid people who don't follow these standards and get away with it outside of academia.
WWII. The Nazis and Japanese were every bit as fervent as the the muslim terrorists of today. And there was the American civil war too. The South was fighting for their very way of life, and when the North killed enough of them, they gave up.
The terrorists will hate us no matter what we do. Rights for women, sexual freedom, etc - the militant Islamist is primarily concerned about the 'decadancy' of the west, and how it is 'corrupting' them. As long as we're broadcasting pr0n, they're going to hate us, and the breeding of new terrorists will continue. Really, there are only three choices - fight, convert to Islam, or live a life of dhimmitude.
I vote to fight. And better there than here.
>> most Slashdotters hate Bush more than they hate BinLaden
Ironically I probably count. Bush has had a far more negative impact on my life than Bin Laden.
Further, they both rely on archaic superstitions and irrational beliefs and attack people that disagree with them. I see little real difference.
Oh, did you miss the recent inquiry report where it was determined that the RCMP passed on erroneous or misleading information to the US, and where Ara was pretty well cleared of involvemnet with Al Qaeda? What exactly did he do to "deserve it"? An apparently innocent man was tortured for a year. Of course in the U.S. you might never have had an inquiry; the whole issue would have been swept under the carpet with Arar having no chance to examine the evidence against him, getting tried by a military tribunal, and the people who screwed up getting a promotion.
I did some more reading into it. I was only aware of older informatio; namely he was accused of being an associated of a Abdullah Almalki. It seems that link was extremely tenous. I take it back he didn't deserve it.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Universal compassion is of course unreasonable, but selective can easily be justified from a purely reasonable and egoistic POV.
The key difference between scientific method and the rest of the bunch is that the former has experimentally been proven to work so far. That's why I choose to stick to it, not because I have some faith in it.
As examples of situations where eliminating insurgents has worked in the end, pizzaman100 has presented WWII Germany, WWII Japan, and the US Civil War Confederate States. Here's my brief analysis:
WWII Germany: Nation defeated in war, not an insurgent group.
WWII Japan: Nation defeated in war, not an insurgent group.
Civil War Confederate States: Would be nation defeated in war, not an insurgent group.
And that should be it really. None of your examples are relevant. For Japan I could go on about codes of honor and loyalty to the emperor making the surrender pretty final and binding to everyone involved. For Nazi Germany, I could point that by and large the actual party members were killed or rounded up and the remaining population wasn't really particularly wed to Nazi ideology. It was really a pretty new (made up, crazy) belief system that didn't make a lot of sense to people in the clear light of day. For the Confederacy, I could go on about the whole surrender thing again. That was the understanding of warfare at the time. The war is fought by soldiers, when it's over, the soldiers get to go home, burned though it may be. I'm not going to go on at length about it though, just point out the situation.
Oh, I also can't help pointing out all the (largley apocryphal) stories about Japanese soldiers holing up and refusing to believe the war was over for years. Then there's neo-nazis for Nazi Germany, but they're pretty much unconnected to the actual events of the time. For the former confederate states, I'm assuming that you've never heard of a charming organization called the Ku Klux Klan who have been murdering people in the name of a ridiculous concept of a "way of life" for quite a few years now.
As for all the: they're going to hate us no matter what!, death to the foriegn infidel, nuke them thar a-rabs to glass, better a thousand of their children dead than one of ours twaddle... All I have to say is please crawl back under your rock.
I don't know what question you think you were answering, but I guarantee it wasn't the same one that was asked.
The correct answer is, "Not one". USA in Vietnam & Somalia & Iraq. Russia in Afghanistan & Chechnya. All these conflicts had something in common: a foreign force occupying a region ostensibly for the protection of the locals. All involved hunting down and killing "insurgents". All failed.
The examples you make are examples of victory because the invading forces didn't bother to make a distinction between genuine insurgents and the general populace. The people who would have fought using guerrilla tactics had a more "modern" occupation been attempted were wiped out along with everyone else.
The reason many conflicts in the past resulted in a successful conquest was because the winning army would be let loose to rape and pillage in the defeated country, until anybody who would have tried to revolt was so busy merely trying to survive that any will to rise up was forgotten.
Pirate Party UK
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Suicide should be legal. What lame reasoning.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Oddly enough, you've got me pegged wrong. I don't "doubt logic", I doubt the bias-free application of that logic- as well as the idea that any one logical system is so perfect as to be exclusionary.
Where's the bias in an experiment that proves you can enrich uranium? Where's the bias in the engineering and physics that got us to the moon? Both are heavily rooted in pure math. How can you say (without being a troll) that you doubt the math?
You throw around 'the system' quite a bit, yet you never define it or identify problems with it other than you think its bias. How can you doubt the results of experiments that are repeatable by any other person, and that often are repeated because taking the experiment out of the lab and applying it will make someone a lot of money?
We live in more than one system- unless you're willing to learn about them all, you'll end up nothing other than just another bigot.
Fine, name the 'systems.' You keep throwing that around without ever defining what you mean. You also claim that we live in more than one, so I hope you have brought proof. Nice attempt at a slam by the way; 'you dont think as me therefore you must be a bigot.' Nevermind you've been consistently vague throughout this whole disucssion, which seems pretty trollish to me.
"For the Confederacy, I could go on about the whole surrender thing again. That was the understanding of warfare at the time. The war is fought by soldiers, when it's over, the soldiers get to go home, burned though it may be."
;-)
Although, famously, the South will rise again...
As an additional (serious) note, it's worth noticing that the WWII examples are all of one country fighting another - even though it's a bitterly-fought war both sides were relatively equal, and the losing side "lost on its own merits".
In modern western warfare it's generally one tooled-up uber-teched western power against a bunch of little brown people with catapults and the occasional SAM they've managed to save up to buy from Russia.
In this situation it's less a fair fight, and more a slightly-embarrassing steamrollering. The conflict is entirely one-sided, and everyone knows it. It's no longer about western countries fighting for their right to exist, and it's all about rich, decadent western countries pushing the little guy about and generally being a bully[1]. If you can't beat someone fairly, to their face, your only recourse is to hit them in the head with a half-brick in a dark alley somewhere. This is also likely to factor into the increased likelihood of terrorism/insurgency.
[1] At least, from the point of view of a local, whose country is being invaded by the western power.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
>> most Slashdotters hate Bush more than they hate BinLaden
Ironically I probably count. Bush has had a far more negative impact on my life than Bin Laden.
I rest my case.
Further, they both rely on archaic superstitions and irrational beliefs and attack people that disagree with them. I see little real difference.
Here's a difference: You disagree with Bush. Has he ordered any planes hijacked and flown into your place of work?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"If it weren't for all the jerks who refused to pay attention to private no-smoking rules, you wouldn't have laws against it now".
I call bullshit. Besides, moral prohibitionists wont stop until every drug of any kind is completely criminal and outlawed.
Anyway -- you are over-sensitive to smells. I actually have an excellent sense of smell (i.e. coming up to a campsite in the woods, in the dark, and smelling and identifying the 1 cup of red wine that someone was drinking, 10 feet away, within seconds -- I dunno, can't really characterize one's smellability). Not much passes by my nose without me noticing. But I like the smell of anything burning. Especially a campfire.
Your so-called "nuisance" is simply that you don't like smelling things you don't like. Why is smell so sacred? If you didn't like the shirt I was wearing, would you have a right to demand that you don't see it, simply because you don't like the way it looks? If you didn't like the music I was playing (assume: public space, legal boomboxes), would you have a right to demand that I don't play it, simply because you don't like the kind of music? This sounds like an argument against aesthetics you don't agree with. I happen to believe I should be able to paint my house pink, with green polka dots, if I am so inclined (and bought a house with no homeowners association). Seems to me that you think that you have a right not to sense anything with your 5 senses that you don't find aesthetically pleasing. You have that right -- in your own home. Not in public. I can make sights, sounds, and smells that you do not like. I can fart in your general direction and there is nothing you can do about it.
But maybe farting should be criminalized, as well, because "my right to fart ends at your right to not smell it".
So you think it's disgusting habit. I think voting republican is a disgusting habit. Unfortunately, thinking something is disgusting is not a reason to legislate it away. (A lot of people found interracial marriage and gay marraige to be disgusting, and they passed laws against that as well. Doesn't make it right.)
Oh, and by the way -- the reason smokers are clustered around the entrances is because they are no longer allowed to smoke inside. You people brought it on yourselves. It's cold out there.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
And the Civil war WAS nothing more than a large insurgency. Every conventional war has had insurgents as well.
The terrorists will hate us no matter what we do. Rights for women, sexual freedom, etc - the militant Islamist is primarily concerned about the 'decadancy' of the west, and how it is 'corrupting' them. As long as we're broadcasting pr0n, they're going to hate us, and the breeding of new terrorists will continue. Really, there are only three choices - fight, convert to Islam, or live a life of dhimmitude.
You're 100% wrong. Hate is not the same thing as disapproval. Most muslims and a lot of christians disapprove of pornography. How many of them are willing to give up their life by strapping a bomb to their chest and running into a crowded business to kill themselves to make a statement against it? Very, very few. In order to drive someone to such extremes you have to make them very angry and afraid. A good way to do that is by invading their home, blowing up random buildings, killing their young niece with a bomb, publishing pictures of your sexual abuse of the citizens you arbitrarily arrested, ridiculing their religion, building a dozen huge military bases in their land, looting their treasury, selling off all the businesses to foreigners, hiring foreigners to supply you with goods the locals specialize in, disrupting water and electricity, randomly raiding town and arresting everyone in a certain age bracket, and giving weapons to both enemies across the border and local religious extremist groups who you appoint as police.
You've made the same mistake almost everyone does. You've dehumanized the enemy. "They're terrorists, not people." This is wrong. They are people just like you, and if a foreign power did the same thing to the US you'd probably be willing to do a lot to get some payback on them too. Your assertion that Islam is any more violent than christianity is absurd. Muslims can and do live peaceably alongside people of other religions and I've seen some really selfless acts by muslim clerics in the last decade, to try to stop violence against christians who had wronged them. It is not like when someone converts to Islam they instantly become an inhuman monster that wants to drink the blood of our good, clean, white christian babies. It takes a lot to drive any person to desperate acts of violence. We've done a fine job of driving as many people as possible to that state. I've always assumed that that was part of the plan, to make a new enemy against which we can wage a perpetual war and regain the level of government interference and corruption that we had in the worst parts of the cold war.
Or as another person put it, "dropping bombs on people makes them mad? Who knew?"
It's more than just a troll to me- I seriously care about the idea of all ideas being treated EQUALLY, of all religions having their say, including science. I dislike censorship in any form.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The key difference between scientific method and the rest of the bunch is that the former has experimentally been proven to work so far.
Has it? I've seen science fail enough in my life that I can't say the scientific method has experimentally been proven to work in all instances and for all purposes.
I will say that it is remarkably good for what it was designed to do, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. I certainly can't say that applying the scientific method and ignoring the water temples did the rice farmers of Bali any good, for instance.
That's why I choose to stick to it, not because I have some faith in it.
How do you know that the scientific method has been proven to work so far? That in and of itself is a statement of FAITH.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Where's the bias in an experiment that proves you can enrich uranium?
A political bias towards nuclear warfare.
Where's the bias in the engineering and physics that got us to the moon?
Nationalism- and very dangerous nationalism at that, just ask the crew of Apollo 13.
Both are heavily rooted in pure math.
No, both of those are heavily rooted in pure politics, and the math is chosen to support the predetermined conclusion.
How can you say (without being a troll) that you doubt the math?
I don't doubt the math one bit- whenever you choose your data to support a predetermined conclusion, the math should bear you out. If it doesn't, your data hasn't been chosen carefully enough, and you need to redefine your personal meaning of "objective".
You throw around 'the system' quite a bit, yet you never define it or identify problems with it other than you think its bias. How can you doubt the results of experiments that are repeatable by any other person, and that often are repeated because taking the experiment out of the lab and applying it will make someone a lot of money?
Interesting how you use the corrupting influence of the religion of mammon to try to prove a lack of bias. This either shows you don't understand how personal interest works in the human psyche, or that you don't understand the meaning of the word bias. I'm not sure which.
Fine, name the 'systems.'
I have, a couple. The Bali Water Worshipers, Buddhists, Scientists, The Tao- each of these is a system of thought created to describe, and sometimes change, the world around us. The normative word is "religions".
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
A political bias towards nuclear warfare.
Ya, ok. You seem to be confusing bias in research with bias as to how that research is applied. Oh, nevermind that you can run a power plant.
Nationalism- and very dangerous nationalism at that, just ask the crew of Apollo 13.
Again, nothing with the research itself. The crew of Apollo 13 were volunters.
No, both of those are heavily rooted in pure politics, and the math is chosen to support the predetermined conclusion.
The predetermined conclusion that we can get to the moon? So when science tells us a certain amount of force is required to leave the planet, you think you can come up with a different answer, and then use that answer to leave the planet as well? Ok, keep dreaming.
I don't doubt the math one bit- whenever you choose your data to support a predetermined conclusion, the math should bear you out. If it doesn't, your data hasn't been chosen carefully enough, and you need to redefine your personal meaning of "objective".
Yes, and I'm sure you'll be able to back up whatever you want via an experiment. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Plenty of experiements have shown the opposite of what was expected.
Interesting how you use the corrupting influence of the religion of mammon to try to prove a lack of bias. This either shows you don't understand how personal interest works in the human psyche, or that you don't understand the meaning of the word bias. I'm not sure which.
Who said anything about greed? Is there something inherently wrong with working for a living? I think you should put down whatever your smoking.
I have, a couple. The Bali Water Worshipers, Buddhists, Scientists, The Tao- each of these is a system of thought created to describe, and sometimes change, the world around us. The normative word is "religions".
The goal of science isn't to change the world around us, it is to learn about it. The different between religions and science is that anyone can repeat the experiment to see for himself if the description of the world is accurate. Religions can't do that, they cannot offer any proof at all. You just have to 'have faith.' Science doesn't ask for faith, it says 'prove it to yourself.'
So tell me, do you still believe the earth to be flat, or was Pythagoras 'setting up the data to force his conclusion?'
Fact: Iraq never sponsored Al Quada or any other terrorist organization.
Fact: Osama and Saddam were mortal enemies. Maintaining Saddam would have kept the terrorist cells out of Iraq. Now with the power vaccum we created they are flooding in.
Fact: Republicans relied on fear of attack to pass the Patriot act, wiretaps, and re-elect someone who should have been a lame duck.
Fact: Democrats are just as retarded as Republicans. That is why I am independent. Strait ticket voting should be outlawed immediatly.
Fact: The Republican party doesn't have a leg to stand on without the brainwashed sheep who believe our freedoms are a fair price for "security".
Fact: The Democratic party doesn't have a leg to stand on without the brainwashed sheep who think the government can solve all of their problems.
Fact: This post will be modded down by either a Democrat or Republican.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
Ya, ok. You seem to be confusing bias in research with bias as to how that research is applied. Oh, nevermind that you can run a power plant.
You don't need enriched anything to run a power plant; all you need is a significant difference in temperature. Normal, un-enriched radium with a siphon to several thousand feet deep in the ocean works just fine. But of course, that is overlooked by the bias that you can use enriched fuel for other purposes.
In other words, you can't separate the research from the intent of how the research is applied, the one motivates the other.
Again, nothing with the research itself. The crew of Apollo 13 were volunters.
The point is, due to the bias, angles in the research were missed- creating a dangerous situation. Just because the victims were volunteers is no excuse for shoddy research.
The predetermined conclusion that we can get to the moon?
More, the predetermined conclusion that we should beat the Soviet Union. The choice of data was not correct in any case.
So when science tells us a certain amount of force is required to leave the planet, you think you can come up with a different answer, and then use that answer to leave the planet as well?
Well, when you consider that a group of college students in England recently proved that you can leave the planet with a helium balloon, yes, other answers could and do exist. But that's not my point. My point is that shortcuts were taken in NASA's research for political purposes.
Yes, and I'm sure you'll be able to back up whatever you want via an experiment. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Plenty of experiements have shown the opposite of what was expected.
Only ones that didn't pick their data carefully enough.
Who said anything about greed?
You're the one who mentioned money as a motivator for doing experimentation.
Is there something inherently wrong with working for a living?
None of this is right or wrong, it simply exists.
The goal of science isn't to change the world around us, it is to learn about it.
Keep telling yourself that- it's completely wrong, but I'm sure it's a comforting lie to tell yourself.
The different between religions and science is that anyone can repeat the experiment to see for himself if the description of the world is accurate.
Anybody can repeat a religious experiment as well; one only needs to follow the proper traditions. Just as in science, one can repeat the experiment just fine- as long as the proper controls are in place.
Religions can't do that, they cannot offer any proof at all.
Obviously you don't know very much about religions.
You just have to 'have faith.' Science doesn't ask for faith, it says 'prove it to yourself.'
Proving it to yourself is how you build faith. It's the oldest con in the book.
So tell me, do you still believe the earth to be flat, or was Pythagoras 'setting up the data to force his conclusion?'
Whether the earth is flat or round is more about whether Ptolomey will be allowed to continue to rule Egypt than it is about the Earth. There are ALWAYS extenuating circumstances. Ignoring that fact is stupid.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Nothing in science is 100% proven by definition.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
By reducing an important dialog regarding terrorism, its motives, and the ethical question of what should be done about it, to a bipartisan farce of this vs. that, you will always get the answer wrong, no matter how long you debate.
"This statement is false" is an example. You could say that Republicans say the statement is false, and democrats say the statement is true. Reducing the statement to this, however, makes it impossible to solve. So too will the bipartisan arguement regarding terrorism assure that no matter what answer we come to, it will be the wrong one.
It's been a long time.
Ignoring innane conspiracy theories, Bush has ordered the deaths of far more innocent people. What was the death count in Iraq? 30k according to Bush in a Q&A session several months ago. How many were soldiers? I think it'd be charitable to say 50%.
I guess we're just talking about the difference between teleological and deontological ethics. Some people look at the guy who ordered a complete red herring of a war against a non-threat based on deliberately misstated intelligence which has resulted in the deaths of about 2000 american soldeiers, thousands of Iraqi soldiers, and thousands of Iraqi civilians, as well as provoking terrorist attacks by citizens in a number of countries slightly higher than a fundamentalist who ordered a sort of unprovoked(If you ignore 50 years of the US playing God in the middle east) attack upon innocent men women and children which took about 2500 lives.
If you're the sort to say that intent drives ethics, then yes, the man who actually intended to directly attack innocent women and children is the worse. However, if you're the sort of person who believes that the results of actions is more important than the intention, then the orders of Bush as the commander in chief are orders of magnitude more unethical.
It's been a long time.
What about businesses? I'd argue it's a workplace health and safety issue where the question becomes "Am I allowed to refuse to work because I don't want to suffer chronic carcinogen exposure?"
It's been a long time.
All jobs carry risks and hidden costs. Ask the coal miners; ask the programmers who have carple tunnel syndrome; ask the police who are out on the streets getting shot at. If you are not wiling to take the risks associated with a job, you can choose to work elsewhere, or not to work at all. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.
Well, except all you people who want to make me shiver my ass off and get wet in the rain just to smoke a 5-minute cigarette. (Fictitous situation, for me, fortunately: I don't actually smoke that much. 1-5 cigarettes a week.)
Incidentally, people who work in power plants must accept that they receive doses of carcinogenic radiation. People who work in construction must accept that they will breathe in gross amounts of drywall dust. etc, etc. Don't like it? Get a desk job.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Scientific American sort of holds their opinion on their sleeve, to be honest. That said, I enjoyed reading an article a couple months back that more or less showed that every "alternative" form of fuel out there today relies almost directly on fossil fuels for the bulk of their energy, thus eliminating the benefit, and possibly even making things worse because it's just another energy conversion in the chain.
It's been a long time.
If the republicans ran their country like a business, they never would have approved star wars or its missle based son. All the major powers that might attack the country with an ICBM hare now neutralized (Some reigonal powers have gotten the ability, but most are far more likely to kill someone nearby than waste time trying to attack the US), minor powers like terrorists would use another form of delivery, and for the money spent, there are other, actual threats and actual improvements that would, given a "return on investment" which roughly takes the possible damage and multiplies it by the percieved chance of the event actually happening, show a much, much greater return on investment.
It's been a long time.
And no, it's not illegal. Not in most of the world. If it's my place of business, I'll fucking dictate whether people can smoke tobacco, marijuana, or crack! If you don't like it, run you own business. That is how capitalism is supposed to work.
You see, smoking is currently legal. I'll do whatever legal activity I want on any property I own. (Exposing people to radiation is not a legal activity, by the way. Just ask Jose Padilla.)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Soon, only homeowners will be able to smoke. People who rent wont have those "rights". It will be a classic case of "the rich can do what they want, everyone else can't". It will be totally freakin' awesome because I'll be able to smoke, since I own a house, but all the poor people who work on my house construction projects wont be able to smoke, because every public area will be legislated away. Nice free country we have! You can cut your penis off, but you can't smoke because someone might whine about their 0.00000001% increase of a chances of getting cancer.
You need to get a clue and direct your energy at the factories polluting out atmosphere, and the republicans trying to keep it easy for them to do so!
Similarly, my employer would tell me to work elsewhere if I didn't sign my non-compete agreement, despite the fact that it is considered "restraint of trade" and illegal in a right-to-work state like Virginia. I don't care for this practice, but I am free to work elsewhere.
If I run a bar -- I'll make sure to blow smoke in the face of anyone applying. If they cough, I wont hire them on the basis that there's a 1% chance they might be somebody like you.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Since almost all of the epidemiological evidence about the health effects of secondhand smoke relates to long-term exposure in the home, the fact that this is the one place exempted from current and proposed smoking bans suggests a residual concern for property rights. Yet business owners have property rights, too. If the government respected their right to establish rules about smoking on their own property, potential employees and customers could take such policies into account when deciding where to work or which businesses to patronize. Whether secondhand smoke is a health hazard or merely a nuisance, such a voluntary system is the most appropriate way to deal with the conflicting demands of smokers and nonsmokers, since it allows for diversity and competition, rather than simply imposing the will of the majority on everyone
The evidence concerning the health effects of secondhand smoke is not nearly as conclusive as the evidence concerning the health effects of smoking. The research suggests that people who live with smokers for decades may face a slightly higher risk of lung cancer. According to one estimate, a nonsmoking woman who lives with a smoker faces an additional lung cancer risk of 6.5 in 10,000, which would raise her lifetime risk from about 0.34 percent to about 0.41 percent.
Hint: Me not signaling when I change lanes in front of you is a far greater threat that increases your chance of death, I would estimate, far more than the 0.07 percent increase from DECADES of smoke exposure. Especially if I driver like an asshole in front of you every day. (In reality, there seems to be a DIFFERENT asshole in front of ME every day. I manage to swerve away in time, usually.)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
He has done the equivalent to people who had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorism in general. Iraqi Civilians.
The correct answer is, "Not one".
This is simply not true. Or at least I know we aren't fighting off Indian attacks in my region of the country anymore.
The examples you make are examples of victory because the invading forces didn't bother to make a distinction between genuine insurgents and the general populace.
Actually it was two factors. The one you just mentioned, and the orher factor being the factor which you seem to think has never worked: Killing every single one of your "enemies".
The original question was:
"Can you point to one case at any time in world history where eliminating insurgents has worked in the end?"
The answer is yes. You seem to be confusing the term "insurgents" with the word "troops". We killed a lot of "insurgents" in Falluja. We didn't kill very many troops.
Life is too short to proofread.
So how do you kill every single one of your "enemies" if you can't tell who your "enemies" are (because they're using guerrilla tactics and the civilians you're ostensibly "protecting" are on their side)? Please explain; your "rebuttal" made no sense at all.
Pirate Party UK
Reason without faith is perfectly reasonable. Reason with faith needs a bit of explanation.
"I think therefore I am" is a statement of observation and reasoning, a very famous one. Even if the observation 'I think' was an assumption (which it isn't, how else can you observe something by thinking it. Think about this), this would not be faith, but belief: two totally different things. I am an atheist, I do not have faith. I however believe many things, including that the sun comes up each morning. This is not faith, this is a belief (and a bloody well founded one as well). Disentangling the mess that religion has made of the terms faith and belief is a step further towards understanding.
So how do you kill every single one of your "enemies" if you can't tell who your "enemies" are
You simply expand the scope of your attacks to include everyone.
(That's what we did in Dresden.)
Again, I am not advocating this approach, but I do believe the OP was mistaken.
Life is too short to proofread.
Yes, but the problem (from the Muslim view) is that we're broadcasting the porn into their nations - with satellite and internet. So in their view, it's not just you and I watching porn in the privacy of our homes, it's you and I sending filth into THEIR countries. So they're going to hate us - unless we (for starters) give up TV and the internet.
Your assertion that Islam is any more violent than christianity is absurd.
You must be joking. There is a piece of art called the 'Piss Christ'. You've probably hard of it - It's a crucifix in urine. But funny thing is, there have been no riots in the streets or murders by Christians because of the 'art'. Now you go make a piece of art called the 'Piss Mohammad' and see what happens.
And now Madonna has a shtick where she simulates a crucifixion. I've heard some gripes from Christians, but once again no violence in the street. Now how about if Madonna had an act where she popped out of a lamp holding the head of Mohammed - what do you think would happen? You and I both know - there would be violence throughout the Muslim world, and there would be a fatwa for Madonna's head.
Islam is a religion that breeds violence. Are all of Muslims violent? Nope, but enough are to show a pattern. Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Niger, India, Philippines, Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Holland, Denmark, Spain, UK, Lebanon, Israel, China, Russia, USA. These are all nations that have experienced violence or war from the 'religion of peace' in the last 10 years - in many cases before we invaded Iraq.
Look at recent history - some Danish guy draws a comic of Mohammed, and the Muslim world goes ballistic. Then the Pope says Islam is violent, and they go and prove him right by rioting and killing nuns.
Islam has declared war on the West. Iraq did not cause the war. Iraq is nothing more than a new theater in an ongoing conflit - A conflict that has been going on since the 6th century. Iraq is AWESOME for us because it's like flypaper for Al Queda. They flock to the country, and then we kill them. See the grandparent - 4,000 dead Al Queda in two years. That's 4,000 people who won't be flying jets into our buildings.
So how do you explain Christians eating pork and expect to go to heaven? The OT was perfectly clear about it, but, ... , God changed his mind?
Venal, not mortal, sin...for which the redemptive power of Christ is a bit of a cure-all. Of course, for some of us (like me) it's a bit more serious than that- but I pay for this particular sin within days of breaking it (quite litterally- sores on the skin and everything, I think partially due to my Jewish heritage). In other words, I have a tendency to think that the kosher rules were more about health than hell- and I wish I could afford to eat kosher because it is simply better food.
Reason without faith is perfectly reasonable. Reason with faith needs a bit of explanation.
And yet, almost every university in Europe started due to the application of Reason to Faith (theology).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Disentangling the mess that religion has made of the terms faith and belief is a step further towards understanding.
To paraphrase my favorite modern Catholic movie, Dogma: Belief is what kills, I'd rather have a good idea.
If you're just replacing blind faith with belief, you're in the same boat as Mel Gibson even if you claim to be an athiest. You're claiming a power human beings simply don't have: the ability to be infalible.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This is what I mean with disentangling: religion has made such a mockery of the simple concept of belief and systematic uncertainty by muddied it with faith, that people, especially in the US, will confuse any form of uncertainty with a complete lack of knowledge. This just isn't so. Belief is a lack of absolute certainty, but it can be quantified: faith is a claim to absolute certainty, knowledge the same. The last two are both wrong.
Then you should actually like many of the older religions, which came to the same conclusion long ago.
For instance, in Roman Catholic Canon Law, we can never be absolutely certain about heaven, hell, or the existance of God; we can have moral certainty but absolute certainty is the mortal sin of Pride.
This is also the meaning of the Zen Koan- If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
Likewise it's also accepted in the Tao- The certain man is the fool, the wise man always questions.
Kaballah Judaism has a similar saying- The Rabbi who claims all truth is a liar.
There are plenty of reasonable religions that have come to the same conclusion you have- they're just living in a slightly different probability than you are.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I would have to agree with you on the intolerance thing. Check out this lovely quote...
3 28,00.html for the full article.
Tasnim Aslam, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani foreign ministry, came out with this little piece of doublethink beauty: "Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence."
See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2361